Paul Guiragossian's inventive approaches to painting gained him acclaim in Lebanon and Europe. His vast oeuvre offers an intuitive glance into the human figure through varying degrees of abstraction. Steeped in thick waves of colour, the elongated bodies featured in Guiragossian's work reflect themes of motherhood, spirituality, exile and labour, all echoing his personal experiences and observations. Spending his childhood in Jerusalem, Guiragossian attended the Yarkon Studio of Art. In the lead up to the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, Guiragossian, his siblings and his mother – a survivor of the 1915 Armenian Genocide – were forced to move to Beirut indefinitely. In 1957, he received scholarships to study at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Florence and Les Ateliers des Maîtres de l'École de Paris in 1962. Guiragossian won First Prize at both the 1958 Paris Biennial and the 1961 Florence Biennale. Major exhibitions include a retrospective organised by the Paul Guiragossian Foundation at the Beirut Exhibition Centre in 2013.