Stephen Sacklarian was born in 1899 in Varna , Bulgaria and emigrated to the United States in 1911 . His parents were Turkish Armenians who escaped persecution in Turkey from the Armenian Holocaust . Not much is known about Sacklarian ’s early youth , other than he grew up in poverty in Philadelphia . He was a Golden Gloves boxer during a brief period in his late youth . Sacklarian was also missing a small part of his dominant ( right ) painting hand ring finger from a childhood accident , though he never claimed it a hindrance on his artistic career
Armenian Holocaust
Armenian Genocide
Stephen Sacklarian