Jak Ihmalyan

Jak Ihmalyan (Ժակ Իխմալյան; July 30, 1922 – April, 1978) was a painter, political activist, poet and professor of Armenian origin.

Biography
Ihmalyan was born on July 30, 1922 in Istanbul, Turkey. His father Garbis was from Konya and his mother from Kayseri. His father was also an amateur painter. Renowned Turkish painter Abidin Dino, who was in close relations with Garbis, recognizes his son as having a potential of becoming a great painter. Dino soon thereafter became a tutor to Jak Ihmalyan. In 1936, Ihmalyan graduated from a private Catholic Secondary School, then he attended a French high school, and finally graduated from a Turkish High School. In 1939 he actively participated in communist revolutionary activity by sympathizing with the TKP. However, he continued to paint in his workshop in Istanbul. In 1942 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Painting Department of Istanbul. After he gained his diploma, he was arrested for his political activities in 1944, after being set free, he was arrested again in 1946. He spent a total of nearly 4 years in prison. In 1948, at the end of his detention, he continued painting image building and started to write poetry. He began painting for the Armenian children's magazine "Bardez" or garden in Armenian. He also worked for the newly founded Armenian "Nor Or" newspaper. In 1949 he married Marie Abacigil and bore his first son Vartan. After gaining his passport, he went to Lebanon, where he remained there for seven years. He became an art teacher to a few art academies in Beirut. At one point, he and French painter Simon Baltax painted a billboard called "Friendship of Peoples" for the airport in Beirut.

In 1956, Ihmalyan traveled to Warsaw, Poland, he worked as a caricaturist for the Polish Communist Party. He made banners in honor of Nazim Hikmet's famous poem "Güneşi içenlerin Türküsü" or Ballad of the Sun Smokers. Ihmalyan and Nazim Hikmet were considered close friends.

Ihmalyan moved to Beijing, China, in 1959. He worked for the Communist radio's and studied Chinese folkloric and contemporary art scene.

In 1961, he went to the Soviet Union where he remained for the rest of his life. He worked as an editor for the first two years on the radio. He was appointed as a lecturer at Moscow State University in 1963 in the Institute of Eastern Languages of Turcology. His workshop was located in the street of Taniyevih Arbat in the lower floor of an old building. He organized various exhibitions in Moscow from 1968 to 1978. In 1974 he became a member of the Soviet Union Painters Committee. Ihmalyan died in Moscow on April 1978, at the age of 56, but had his body cremated in Yerevan.

Solo exhibitions

 * 2013 Sismanoglio Megaro, Istanbul
 * 1993 Gallery MD, Istanbul
 * 1991 Gallery Cochin Marie-Teresa, Paris
 * 1985 Gallery İstasyon Sanat Evi, Istanbul
 * 1982 Etchmiadzin Cathedral Museum, Vagharshapat
 * 1980 Ankara
 * 1980 Baku, Tbilisi, Yerevan
 * 1979 Moscow
 * 1979 Ankara
 * 1978 Tartu
 * 1973 Institute of Astronomy, Moscow
 * 1972 House of Culture of the Institute of Asia and Africa, Moscow
 * 1971 Vilnius
 * 1968 Central House of Creative Workers, Moscow