ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the artistic legacy of an Armenian artist, Leon Tutundjian, who survived the Armenian Genocide of 1915 as a young boy. In 1924, at the age of nineteen, Tutundjian arrived in Paris and studied art at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Looking at Tutundjian's artistic legacy through the lens of trauma theory, one can discern the repercussions of his genocide experience and the resulting fracturing of his psyche. He was a prolific and driven artist, creating more than a thousand images in several media and styles. In a 1925 image of colored ink, gouache and watercolor the face on Tutundjian's ceramic plate reappears, only it is barely legible from its surrounding multicolored acid-like background. Like the gouache, the background is comprised of various colors, but they have a smoother, watery look and do not intrude upon the face as directly.
