Demirdjian began as an orientalist but later during his creative years he truly became an Egyptian artist, which is why he is often classified as both. He was the first Armenian-Egyptian professor painter in modern Egypt.
Ervand Demirdjian was born in May 1870, in Constantinople where he studied fine arts and graduated with honors in 1890. In 1893 he went to Paris and enrolled in the Academie Julian becoming a student to painter Jean Paul Laurens and to the famous orientalist Benjamin Constant. At the same time he worked at the Louvre studying classical works such as Delacroix, Dante and Virgil.
By mid-1894, he returned to Constantinople, however, the persecution of Armenians during 1895 and 1896 forced Demirdjian to leave. In 1896, he fled with a group of Armenians to Alexandria, from there he moved to Cairo. Together with 2,000 other Armenian refugees Demirdjian’s life was initially very difficult and devoid of income. The local Armenian community led by Decran Pasha did its best to shelter and feed them. Demirdjian’s experiences and observations of Egyptian popular life became the subject matter of much of his work, leading to an enormous quantity of drawings and paintings documenting everyday life.
He participated in some of the annual exhibitions of the Circle of Artists which was the first artistic group in modern Egypt. In 1901 he began lecturing art and teaching in the Khorenian Armenian School where he tutored students privately. His most talented student was the well known painter Diran Garabedian (1882-1963) who became his successor and one of the first avant-garde painters in Egypt.
Ervand Demirdjian lived and worked in a flat on top of a khan (on Mohammed Ali street), not far from Islamic Cairo where he received much of his inspiration for his work. He also taught at the Kalousdian Armenian National school in Boulac and occasionally he was commissioned to paint portraits. Demirdjian is known for his orientalist subjects where he excelled at depicting the social scenes of old Cairo and the Nile. To summarise his work we can say that Demirdjian began as an orientalist but later during his creative years he truly became an Egyptian artist, which is why he is often classified as both. He was the first Armenian-Egyptian professor painter in modern Egypt.