Harutyunyan revived the traditions of the medieval Armenian architectural and sculptural complex and created his own vivid style of decorative narrative relief art.

Their architectural and sculptural composition in many ways determines the artistic and plastic expressivity of the modern Yerevan, the language of its symbols and historical associations".

His father was a musician who worked for the Armenian Philharmonics and the A. Spendiaryan opera and ballet Theatre, the artistic director and conductor of which was K. Saradjev.

Once, when he was still a boy, he found a piece of tuff and, using whatever tools he could find, hewed out a woman's head that looked like Armenian goddess Anahit.

[3] In 1952 Harutyunyan received the prize of Ministry of Culture of the Armenian SSR for the project of the monument to Anani Shirakatsi.

The sculptor's graduate work was the bronze statue of Komitas that won the competition and was installed on the composer's grave (Yerevan.

The fairy-tale bird portrayed in warm ochre-coloured tuff looks like the images seen on the pages of medieval Armenian manuscripts.

This opening was especially festive; it was attended by the leaders of Armenia and by significant figures representing Armenian art and culture.

The British photographer Norman Parkinson, who came to Armenia together with his creative team, took a photo of the monument with the model Gerry Hall, and it was published in Vogue UK magazine in 1975 as one of the artist's best works.

In his introduction to the book Napoleon Bonaparte (published in Armenian in 1975) Manfred talks with evident admiration about his impressions of the Mother Armenia monument that "amazes by its impact and artistic significance".

[14] The way the monument became a focus of the architecture of Yerevan city and played a city-forming role was noted by the well-known art scholar A.

[15] Harutyunyan talked about the process of creating the Mother Armenia monument in his interview with the Sovetakan Arvest newspaper.

In 1968, Harutyunyan created (together with the architect R. Israelyan and the sculptors S. Manasyan and A. Shahinyan), a grand architectural and sculptural complex dedicated to the heroes of the Sardarapat Battle and located 10 km from the city of Armavir, right where in 1918 the Armenians won over the Turkish army.

The composition includes the figures of winged oxen, an alley of eagles leading to the Victory wall, the buildings of the refectory and the Ethnography Museum of Armenia.

V. Tseltner says: "Harutyunyan's monumental sculpture, which embodied with incomparable force his favourite heroic theme, keeps moving ahead... His winged horses and the eagle on the Victory wall in the Sardarapat Battle complex are almost heraldic.

The whole nature of its statuary, its figurative language, the principles of construction of the bas-relief compositions demonstrate connection with the previous works by Ara Arutyunyan," notes the art scholar B.

[19] Harutyunyan paid his respects to the Austrian writer Franz Werfel who wrote Forty Days of Musa Dag, the novel describing these historical events.

He created a whole gallery of sculpture portraits of the most famous figures from the Armenian history and culture: writer H. Tumanyan, composer Komitas, director V. Adjemyan, singer L. Zakaryan, People's Artists of the USSR M. Mkrtchyan and S. Sarkisyan, hero of the Soviet Union test pilot R. Kaprielyan, as well as the portrait of the Palestinian sculptor Muna Saudi and several generalized and allegoric images: Fall of Ani ("The Last Sigh"), The Call, The Winner, The Country of Nairi, and Hope.

Harutyunyan was a graphic artist who created drawings that presented, as the art scholar Vladimir Tseltner put it, "a surprisingly significant and varied separate part of the creative work of the sculptor so devoted to his main profession".

[22] His personal exhibitions were held with great success in Moscow, Yerevan and many other cities, and beside sculptures they always included drawings and graphic works such as Theatre, Prayer, and Portrait of an actress, etc.

The art scholar S. Kaplanova says: "Harutyunyan's drawings are akin to works by Boticelli and Giorgione in purity and chastity of artist’s view of female body.