David Ohannessian: Art, Exile, and the Legacies of Genocide

Episode 471

with Sato Moughalian

hosted by Sam Dolbee

David Ohannessian is one of the foremost pioneers of the ceramic styles associated today with the city of Jerusalem, but the remarkable story of how he ended up there has never been properly told. Born in 1884 outside of Eskişehir (modern-day Turkey), David Ohannessian became a master in the iconic Kütahya style of Ottoman ceramics. He worked on important architectural projects of the Ottoman government, only to be deported during the Armenian Genocide. He managed to survive, however, and continued his craft afterward in Jerusalem, where he became involved with restoration of the Dome of the Rock and opened his own ceramics studio in the Old City. Yet the past stayed with him, especially the weight of his experience during the genocide. In this episode, Sato Moughalian discusses Feast of Ashes, her recent biography of Ohannessian. She also talks about his story's personal resonance for her as Ohannessian's granddaughter. His artistic persistence provided a model of resilience to emulate in her own art, but the violence and displacement experienced by Ohannessian and his family also left a legacy of secrets and complicated grief in Moughalian's life that was long felt but seldom addressed. 

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Contributor Bios

Sato Moughalian is a flutist and writer based in New York City. Her biography of her grandfather, Feast of Ashes: The Life and Art of David Ohannessian, was published by Redwood Press/Stanford University Press in 2019, longlisted for the PEN/America Jacqueline Bograd Weld Biography Award, and was a finalist for the AAP PROSE Award in the Biography & Autobiography. With Perspectives Ensemble, a chamber group she founded at Columbia University in 1993, she explores and contextualizes the works of composers and visual artists and was awarded the 2013 Ramon Llull Prize for Creative Arts. She is principal flutist of Gotham Chamber Opera, American Modern Ensemble, and has made more than 35 chamber ensemble recordings, most recently Manuel de Falla: El Amor Brujo/El Retablo de Maese Pedro (Naxos).

Sam Dolbee is a lecturer on History and Literature at Harvard University. His research is on the environmental history of the late Ottoman Empire told through the frame of locusts in the Jazira region.

Further Listening

	Heghnar Watenpaugh	407 3/25/19	Survivor Objects and the Lost World of Ottoman Armenians
	Özlem Gülin Dağoğlu	378 9/13/18	Mihri Rasim Between Empire and Nation
	Sylvia Alajaji	461 4/23/20	Music and Silence in the Armenian Diaspora
	Armen T. Marsoobian	255 8/4/16	Armenian Photography in Ottoman Anatolia
	Nefin Dinç	387 10/20/18	The Incredible Life of Antoine Köpe

Credits

Episode No. 471
Release Date: 13 August 2020
Recording Location: New York and Somerville, MA
Audio editing by Sam Dolbee
Music: Blue Dot Sessions, "Um Pepino"; Sato Moughalian accompanied by Jacqueline Kerrod and John Hadfield, "Kamancha (Sayat-Nova)"; Zé Trigueiros, "Petite Route"

Special thanks to Chris Gratien
Bibliography and images courtesy of Sato Moughalian

Images

Feast of Ashes: The Life and Art of David Ohannessian.

The Hobyar Mosque, rebuilt c. 1910 with Kütahya tiles. Photo by Orhan Kolukısa.

“Turkish Room,” Sledmere House, home of the Sykes family. Tiles by David Ohannessian c1913. Photo by Sato Moughalian, 2007.

Ohannessian's 1919 sketch of the extant kiln at the Haram al-Sharif in Jerusalem, used by itinerant ceramicists who came to Jerusalem during the nineteenth century to create renovation tiles for the Dome of the Rock. From Feast of Ashes, courtesy of Sato Moughalian.

Girls decorating ceramics at the Dome of the Rock Tiles workshop (1920). American Colony Photo Dept., Matson Photo Collection, Library of Congress.

Façade of the Dome of the Rock (detail, c. 1934-39), prior to the full 1966 restoration; American Colony Photo Dept., Matson Photo Collection, Library of Congress.

The Dome of the Rock on the Haram al-Sharif, Jerusalem. The current gilded dome was a 1992 gift from King Hussein of Jordan. Photo by Sato Moughalian, July 2013.

David Ohannessian ceramics, Dome of the Rock Tiles studio, Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem, 1930s. Photo by Olympia Shannon.

David Ohannessian ceramics, Dome of the Rock Tiles studio, Via Dolorosa, Jerusalem, c. 1930. Photo by Olympia Shannon.

Sato Moughalian with pieces attributed to David Ohannessian, March 2016. Photo by Chris Gratien.

Select Bibliography

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BILGI, Hülya, and Idil Zanbak Vermeersch. Sadberk Hanim Museum Kütahya Tiles and Ceramics Collection. Istanbul: Sadberk Hanim Museum, 2018.

CARSWELL, John, and C. J. F. Dowsett. Kütahya Tiles and Pottery from the Armenian Cathedral of St. James, Jerusalem, 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972.

CELIK, Zeynep. "Reflections on Architectural History Forty Years after Edward Said's Orientalism." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians. 77.4 (2018): 381-387.

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