Rigby painter proud to carry on his mentor’s legacy 40 years after his death

RIGBY – Painting is a life’s work for Ovanes Berberian that has brought him notoriety and financial success, but what matters most to him is carrying on the legacy of his mentor, who passed way 40 years ago.

“He passed away too soon. I really miss him,” Berberian tells EastIdahoNews.com.

Berberian, 74, who originally hails from the Soviet Union, has art displayed throughout his Rigby home, as well as the Museum of Idaho, the Fremont County Courthouse in St. Anthony and other places. High-profile clients have purchased art from him over the years, including Arnold Schwarzenegger and the late actor Anthony Quinn.

Berberian describes himself as a still life and landscape artist who focuses on “impressionistic color relationships.”

“Color relationship, to me, is far more important than any other value or design,” Berberian says.

Since the 1980s, Berberian has also hosted oil painting workshops for students all over the world. A new art studio is currently under construction on his six-acre spread so he can host larger workshops more often. He’s hoping to have it completed in time for his next workshop the first week of June.

Berberian attributes his success as a painter to Sergei Bongart, a now-deceased Russian native who taught workshops out of a studio in Thornton during the 1970s and 80s. Berberian attended his workshop in 1981 after meeting him in Seattle a year earlier.

That’s what set Berberian on the path to becoming a professional artist and making Idaho his permanent home.

Berberian shares his recollections of meeting Bongart for the first time and his relationship with Bongart over the years.

“I was riding my bicycle through an alleyway and I saw some paintings in a window case. They reminded me of Russian art and I stopped to take a look,” Berberian recalls.

Bongart’s assistant, Ron Lucas, came out and invited Berberian inside, where Bongart was teaching a group of students. Lucas introduced Berberian to Bongart, who then invited Berberian to his workshop in Idaho.

“He gave me a scholarship,” says Berberian. “He said, ‘You’ve got the talent. You better come and study with me.’ I went to continue my studies with him in Los Angeles.”

Bongart’s background

Bongart had a bold personality, according to Berberian. He wasn’t afraid to tell his students what he thought of their work. If it was terrible, Berberian says he didn’t mince words.

It’s a quality that Berberian appreciated about him because it challenged him to be better.

“His honesty was pure. There was no fake (criticism),” says Berberian. “People loved him for that.”

Bongart started painting when he was a boy and took his first lesson at age 15, according to a 1980 news report. He later studied art throughout Russia.

After World War II, he escaped the Communist country and eventually moved to the U.S. His initial visit to eastern Idaho happened in 1966 when he was invited to teach a workshop in Idaho Falls.

Berberian says Bongart drove through Thornton at one point and was hooked.

“I became completely in love with this area because it’s completely Russian, and nothing can be better than living in Russia without communism,” Bongart told a local newspaper at the time, adding that his home in Thornton reminded him of his grandmother’s house in Russia.

Bongart bought the property on 5200 South around 1976, not far from where Yellowstone Bear World is today. He held workshops in his studio every year until his death in 1985. The cabin-style building is still standing.

Painter’s brush with Hollywood actor

Many famous people attended his workshops through the years, including actor Gene Hackman.

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EastIdahoNews.com published a story last month about Hackman’s visit to Rexburg in the 1980s. Details about the reason for his visit were unclear, but Berberian confirmed he was enrolled in Bongart’s class at the same time as the Academy-Award-winning actor and had multiple interactions with him.

“He was just a regular guy,” Berberian says of Hackman.

While Hackman was there, Berberian remembers a Hollywood cameraman asking him if he could paint his portrait. When the man asked Berberian how much it would cost, Berberian reluctantly told him $10.

“He loved it (the portrait),” says Berberian. “He gave me $20 and said, ‘No change.’ I was (young and poor) at the time and that $20 made me feel so rich. Hackman was there painting. It was fun times.”

Sony Apinchapong, another one of Bongart’s assistants, later hosted a workshop in Taos, New Mexico. Berberian was among the students who attended with Hackman and he remembers eating breakfast with the late actor.

Berberian says it was that visit to New Mexico that led Hackman to eventually buy a home there, where he lived for decades until his death in February.

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Preserving Bongart’s legacy

Like Bongart, Berberian grew up painting, but it was not by choice. Berberian says his father was a famous painter in Russia and he “forced him” to pick up a brush at age 5. Berberian later attended six years of art school.

An uncle living in Los Angeles is what brought Berberian to the U.S. initially. Three years later, he moved to Seattle, where he met Bongart.

Berberian says it was his artistic upbringing, combined with his ties to Russia, that helped him and Bongart form such a close friendship.

Bongart took Berberian under his wing and offered to buy a painting from Berberian at one point.

“He wanted to see my painting so he invited me to Santa Monica. We drank wine and listened to some music on his gramophone,” says Berberian. “That evening was the best critique of my life and he asked how much I wanted for one of them.”

Berberian told Bongart he would just give him the painting, but he kept insisting to buy it to help out his financially-struggling student. After haggling back and forth a bit, Bongart eventually said he’d give Berberian one of his paintings when they got back to Idaho.

Bongart, who was an alcoholic, died a short time later. He was 65.

It was Berberian’s friendship with Bongart that prompted him to move to Idaho the following year in 1986.

He bought the six-acre property north of Rigby that now includes the original homestead and a larger Russian-style home with an outdoor swimming pool on the east side. Directly behind the pool is the construction site for Berberian’s new indoor art studio.

Berberian explains what appealed to him about building a home on this particular spot.

“From Rigby to my place, there were no houses (at that time),” Berberian says. “It was so quiet and that quietness really got me. The peaceful, untouched nature of it is what attracted me.”

Today, Berberian’s home sits at the end of a long driveway that’s gated with a wall to protect his privacy. He owns the house next door so he has a place to house students during workshops. He also owns an undeveloped field across the street. Amid so much growth and development, he hopes to preserve a quiet haven that resembles what the area was like when he first moved there.

Today, many of Bongart’s paintings are on display in an art gallery at Brigham Young University-Idaho. Berberian inherited three of them.

Four decades after Bongart’s passing, Berberian is proud to be the caretaker of his legacy and pass on the knowledge he instilled in him to his students.

“The more you paint, the more you realize there’s more that you don’t know. You can’t judge a painting by how many hours it took to do it,” he says. “Once it gets into your blood, you can’t stop.”

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