Hovsep Pushman was a well noted painter in the New York in the 1930s, when his contemplative still lifes and sensitive portrait of women reached very high prices.

Pushman was born on May 9, 1877, in Diyarbekir, where his family was in the carpet business. He showed early artistic ability. At eleven, he was the youngest student ever admitted to the Imperial School of Fine Arts in Constantinople.

In 1896, the Pushman family emigrated to the United States and settled in Chicago, where Hovsep studied Chinese culture, immersing himself in Asian art, and began to teach…