Marc Balakjian was born to parents of Armenian descent in Rayak, Lebanon in 1940. He immigrated to England in 1966, enrolling at Hammersmith College of Art in 1967. Balakjian established himself as an artist and master printmaker, working at Studio Prints from 1974, founded by his wife in north west London. There he collaborated with leading contemporary painters, including Frank Auerbach, Lucien Freud, Leon Kossoff, and R. B Kitaj, to produce some of their most significant prints over four decades, alongside his own artistic practice.
Artist, printmaker and publisher, Mardiros Yacoub Balakjia (later known as Marc Balakjian) was born to parents of Armenian descent in Rayak (a village close to a French military base) in Lebanon in 1940. His parents had fled Turkey during the 1915 Armenian genocide and settled in Lebanon. ‘The Armenian diaspora has lived with a sense of unfinished business and injustice ever since, and this history influenced Marc’s work,’ (Simmons, 2017). Together with his parents, he relocated to Beirut when he was 10 years old and finished his early schooling there. He travelled to Europe for the first time in 1962 and visited Italy, France and Switzerland and, then in 1963, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland. In 1966, Balakjian immigrated to England with the aim of studying architecture. Following a year in Oxford as an architectural draftsman, he decided to pursue art studies. He travelled to Paris and Rome to explore printmaking. Balajian first studied painting at Hammersmith College of Art (where he was taught by émigré, Peter Baer) from 1967 to 1970, followed by postgraduate studies in printmaking at the Slade School of Art between 1971 and 1973. In 1973, he married the British printmaker, artist, fellow Slade alumna, and founder of Studio Prints, Dorothea Wight. Together, they had two children, Aram and Tamar. Balakjian visited Armenia only once, at the age of 79, just two months before his death.
Balakjian primarily gained prominence through his association with London’s Studio Prints located in Queen's Crescent, Kentish Town, NW5, which he joined in 1974, a year after marrying Wight. The atelier focused on producing editions of prints by leading artists and, during his tenure, he collaborated with many contemporary painters, including German-born Frank Auerbach and Lucian Freud, Ken Kiff, Leon Kossoff, William Turnbull and his wife, Singaporean-born Kim Lim, and American-born R. B. Kitaj. Balakjian and Wight pioneered new techniques in British printmaking, establishing Studio as a leader for four decades. In 1990, Balakjian proofed and printed a series of Auerbach’s works titled Seven Portraits which were drawn with a Japanese screwdriver. These prints are now part of the Ben Uri Collection. Balakjian himself gained recognition for his use of intaglio printing. In the 1980s, facing a decline in work, the couple began offering in-house plate-making services to assist painters and sculptors with limited printmaking experience. They were also associated with Morley College in south London, an adult education institution with a strong emphasis on the visual arts. At Morley, ‘Marc is fondly remembered for his lively conversations on aspects of art in society. He felt that printmaking was not appreciated, nor supported, in Britain,’ (Simmons, 2017).
In his own practice Balakjian created etchings, drawings of varying scales, watercolours, and paintings, alongside a detailed sketchbook, characterised by a limited black and white palette and darker tones of blues and greens. He also regularly worked in mezzotint, the technique involving working with a copper plate that has been meticulously ‘grounded’ using a semi-circular, fine-toothed tool known as a ‘rocker’, resulting in the entire surface being uniformly roughened. During his earlier training at the Slade, he rediscovered this largely forgotten technique, allowing him to produce dramatic studies, rich in tone and texture. His realistic subject matter is often enigmatic, featuring mysterious packages bound with knotted ropes, occasionally set against backdrops of prison bars or piles of wooden planks.
Balakjian taught printmaking extensively in art institutions in the UK (including the Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford; Kingston Polytechnic, and Chelsea School of Art), in Europe and in the USA. He also regularly exhibited in the UK, often at Morley College, and with Dorothea Wight in a two-person show at The New Art Gallery Walsall (2013–4), as well as internationally. Marc Balakjian died of pancreatic cancer at home in Muswell Hill, London, England on 10 August 2017. His works are held in numerous public collections throughout the UK, including the British Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum, and the British Council Collection, among others. In 2022 the publication of Lucian Freud – Catalogue Raisonné of the Prints featured an interview between Balakjian and art critic, Martin Gayford, while the Arts Council of England (ACE) offered almost 500 prints from the Balakjian collection to museums under its Cultural Gifts Scheme and Acceptance in Lieu.
Consult items in the Ben Uri archive related to [Marc Balakjian]
Publications related to [Marc Balakjian] in the Ben Uri Library