Leone Minassian (Constantinople 1905 - Venice 1978). The artist, because of racial persecution committed by the Turks against the Armenians, with her mother and brother exiled first to Naples and then in Venice. In this new environment of the lagoon he was able to develop his talent at drawing and painting, showed as a child. He attented tutorials with Amedeo Bianchi and the Venetian Alessandro Milesi, with the lessons at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia.
His real art education was through the knowledge in Venice of Pio Semeghini in 1925. In the early years of his activity, he experienced the most diverse genres of painting, all inspired by the true, still lifes, landscapes, nudes, portraits, views and views of Venice, rustic themes (made these for the most part during his stay with in the family at Trecenta).
In 1924 he began to participate in exhibitions organized by the Opera Bevilacqua La Masa and in 1930 at the Venice Biennale. In these years he met the sculptor Alberto Viani, Giuseppe Santomaso, Giorgio Morandi in Bologna and the sculptor Jean Arp.
In 1945 he outlined the first major rift in the style of Minassian: the favorite theme was still life, drawing left while rounding the color darkened and intensified. In 1947 he began to exhibit in solo exhibitions, attracting the attention of critics. Giuseppe Marchiori, Giovanni Cavicchioli, Carlo Ludovico Ragghianti, Michelangelo Masciotta wrote about him. At the same time, the paintings of the natural reference became increasingly difficult to read the forms and gradually came to painting surrealistic, even after the knowledge of Arp in 1954.
Although he was one of the most creative and thoughtful protagonists in post-war Italian, Minassian was slowly marginalized by art critics of the fifties, less tolerant of the former to artists seeking their own self-expressive value, up to fall almost completely in 'oblivion after his death in 1978.
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