Aguletsi was famous for being the last Armenian to regularly wear her traditional
Armenian dress in
Yerevan.[2][3]
Biography
Lusik Aguletsi was born on May 31, 1946, in the village of
Verin Agulis in Nakhichevan, to the Harutyunyan family; the last Armenians living in Agulis after the 1919
Agulis massacre committed by the
Azerbaijanis. Her experience in Agulis was the inspiration for the character “Lusik” in the novel Stone Dreams by Azerbaijani author
Akram Aylisli.[2][4] In 1953, Aguletsi’s family moved to Yerevan. In 1963-1967, she studied at the Panos Terlemezyan Art College of Yerevan. During her studies, she was awarded a special prize by the "Avangard" newspaper. She was a member of the Artists' Union of Armenia from 1974.[5]
Lusik Aguletsi's paintings are in museums and private collections abroad. In addition to painting, Aguletsi was an active ethnographer. She collected weapons, costumes, decorations, and ancient jars. Some of them were brought from her native Agulis and the rest from different corners of Western and Eastern Armenia.[3]
Lusik Aguletsi died on July 13, 2018, at the age of 72.[6]
Exhibitions
From 1968, Aguletsi participated in various republican exhibitions in Armenia and abroad.
2011 Lusik Aguletsi's book "Relics of the Past" won the main prize at the 4th Republican Book Art Awards, and also won the first prize in the "Book of Art" category of the CIS International Book Awards.
The house on 79 Muratsan Street in Yerevan, where Lusik Aguletsi lived and worked for about 45 years, was turned into a house-museum on the initiative of family members. In the museum, folk concerts, painting, dance and master classes are organized. Adjacent to the museum is the Aguletsi Art Cafe, which features traditional Armenian cuisine with Agulis dishes.[3][9]
Quotes
Painting helped me to expand in different branches of culture, to see, perceive and appreciate the values created by our people, so I study folk culture, especially national holidays, rituals, costumes
Work
Lusik Aguletsi "Relics of the Past", Yerevan, 2010.[3]
Nazik Armenakyan, Armenian festive culture according to the works of painter Lusik Aguletsi, Yerevan, 2015, 408 pages.
References
^Galichian, Rouben (2009). The Invention of History: Azerbaijan, Armenia, and the Showcasing of Imagination. Printinfo Art Books. p. 105.
ISBN9781903656860. Artist Lusik Aguletsi, a Nakhichevan-born Armenian
^
abcMikail Mamedov (December 8, 2016). "Reading the novel Stone Dreams on the 100th anniversary of the "Great Catastrophe"". Nationalities Papers. 44 (6).
Cambridge University Press: 967–984.
doi:
10.1080/00905992.2016.1202911.
S2CID193558085. Remarkably, Lusik is a real person and is known today in Armenia as the artist Lusik Aguletsi. The artist is famous for her attire: she is always dressed in traditional Armenian dress