Joseph Egoyan

d. June 14, 2019

Joseph Egoyan was born in Cairo in 1933. His mother, Arshaluys, was orphaned by the Armenian Genocide of 1915. His father, Yeghia, escaped the horrors that befell his community in the city of Arabkir in current day Turkey. Joseph Egoyan received early training in painting from the Armenian master Ashot Zorian, and after his highly successful one man show in Cairo in his teens, was the first young artist from Egypt to receive a full scholarship to the prestigious Art Institute of Chicago. He later received a Teaching Degree (Art) from the California College of Arts and Crafts, and taught at Oakland Tech High in California before returning to Cairo to teach at the American College. Upon his return, he met his wife, Shushan Devletian, and together they opened a private gallery and design store called Ego Arts, which they ran for five years. Soon after the birth of his son Atom in Cairo in 1960, Joseph and Shushan Egoyan moved to Victoria where they had a daughter Eve in 1964. The couple opened Ego Interiors on Fort Street in the early sixties, and it was the first private art gallery in Victoria to show the works of such important local artist as Maxwell Bates and Herbert Seibner. Ego Interiors was also a successful contemporary furniture store and ran for almost forty years while Joseph also taught a course in interior decorating. With an average of twenty students a class, thousands took this popular course. Joseph also won First Prize in the Vancouver Island Jury Show at the Art Gallery of Victoria and a controversial one-man show titled "BIRDS" was displayed at The B.C. Provincial Museum. After a devastating earthquake in Armenia in 1988, Joseph helped raised a significant amount from the Victoria community, and was commended for his extraordinary charitable work by The Canadian Red Cross Society as well as receiving an award from the Austrian Albert Schweitzer Foundation. His work is at The National Gallery of Armenia and private collections around the world. Joseph Egoyan is survived by his wife Shushan, his children Atom and Eve, his grandchildren Arshile and Viva, as well as his brother Stepan and sister Araxi. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada.
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Joseph Egoyan

d. June 14, 2019

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