Vardges Surenyants’s masterpiece “The Outcast” returns to Armenia after 130 years

Arminfo.  For the first time in 130 years, the masterpiece The Outcast (1894) by the outstanding Armenian painter Vardges Surenyants will be exhibited at the National Gallery of Armenia.

As the National Gallery’s press service told Arminfo, this famous work by Surenyants will be presented to the Armenian public as part of the international exhibition The Face of Humanity: Surenyants’ The Outcast and Humanist Art, which will become an important event in the history of Armenian art.

From September 17, 2026, to February 17, 2027, The Outcast by Surenyants will be available to the general public thanks to cooperation with the Abylkhan Kasteev National Museum of Arts of the Republic of Kazakhstan under an exclusive museum loan.

Thus, for the first time, the National Gallery will bring together in a single exhibition space, in the form of a unified triptych, three key monumental canvases from Surenyants’ artistic legacy: The Outcast (1894), The Desecrated Shrine (1895), and After the Massacre (1898).

The ideological foundation of the project is humanism—people, their dignity, compassion, memory, and universal human responsibility. “Surenyants’ art, created more than a century ago, raises questions that remain relevant today, transforming art into a space for human experience, mutual understanding, and dialogue,” the National Gallery said in a statement.

It should be noted that the exhibition is curated by art historian Vigen Galstyan.