Early years Khanjyan was born in Yerevan, Soviet Armenia. He was the fourth and last child of Sebuh and Verginie - genocide survivors from
Yerznka, who settled in Armenia in 1920. Grigor mentioned on several occasions that a doctor had advised his mother, already in relatively advanced age, to get pregnant in order to avoid some health problems and that is the reason for him to be conceived. Soon after Sovietization of Armenia, Sebuh had to leave his main profession and become an accountant. Grigor had one elder brother who became a musician.
Education Panos Terlemezian - who was a friend of Sebuh Khanjyan - first discovered art talent in little Grigor. In 1945, Grigor finished the coursework at Terlemezian Art College in Yerevan and at the age of 19 (together with fellow painters
Levon Manaseryan and Van Khachatur) entered the
Academy of Fine Arts in Yerevan. At the Academy Khanjyan mostly studied under the guidance of the prolific thematic-compositional artist
Eduard Isabekyan whose influence was strong on the style of Khanjyan's works in early years.
Nationalist painter Khanjyan never joined the Communist Party (something highly expected for having success in the Soviet Union) and had opted for nationalist instead of Soviet very often. For example, for his graduation work he chose the topic of
1907 Communist Congress in London, but pictured
Stepan Shaumian (ethnic Armenian) instead of
Joseph Stalin (as expected) next to
Lenin. In 1965, for the All-Soviet Exhibition of Graphic Art Khanjyan sent his illustrations of
Paruyr Sevak's
The Unsilenceable Belfry - a story of
Armenian genocide. Further, in 1966 he joined the supreme spiritual council of the
Armenian Apostolic Church and befriended the Catolicos
Vazgen I. For the church he created large-scale tapestries depicting episodes from Armenian history -
Battle of Avarayr and
Creation of Armenian Alphabet. As the tapestries were held in the Patriarchate buildings, where the common Soviet people could not enter, Khanjyan was asked by
Karen Demirchyan (then the head of Armenian Communist Party) to reproduce the works as murals at the newly finished
Yerevan Arena for Sport and Music (Hamalir). Instead, Khanjyan created the second largest in the Soviet Union theatrical curtain - Mother Armenia - for Hamalir and followed the advice of his friend, architect
Jim Torosyan and made the murals at the
Yerevan Cascade (now
Cafesjian Museum of Art, then still under construction). Further, he added a third part - Rebirth of Armenia - to make the murals in a form of a triptych. Thus, Rebirth of Armenia was to conclude the triptych
History of Armenia with the greatest figures of 20th century Armenia on it (by the time of the artists demise in 2000, the work was still not finished).
Memberships in various organisations on Khanjyan's house in
Yerevan In 1990, Khanjyan accepted the invitation from the
Academy of Sciences of Armenia to join it as a full member (receiving the title 'Academician') in the field of Art History. == Legacy ==