He was born into an Armenian family in Nor Nakhijevan (now part of Russia). In 1895, he was 15, he finished the Nakhichevan school and from 1897 to 1904 learned at the Moscow School of Arts, also in the workshops of Valentin Serov and Konstantin Korovin. He was heavily influenced by the work of Paul Gauguin and Henri Matisse. He showed his works in various shows.