Born in Trebizond on 1 October 1866^[2], Fetvadjian received formal training at the State Fine Arts School in Constantinople before winning a place at the San Luca Academy in Rome under Cesare Maccari. Further study followed in Vienna between 1891^[2] and 1895 and later in St Petersburg, giving him a broad European academic foundation that he spent the rest of his life applying to distinctly Armenian^[2] subjects.

His most celebrated single image, The Woman of Sasun, showed a figure breastfeeding an infant while cradling a rifle: one of the earliest painted responses to the massacres. Between 1918^[2] and 1920 he designed postage stamps and currency notes for the First Republic of Armenia, and showed watercolours at the Louvre in 1919 and 1920.

After emigrating to the United States in 1922^[2], he joined art societies connected to Harvard, Columbia, and Chicago, but declined offers from American universities to publish his archive. He donated the entire collection to Armenia's National Gallery instead. Fetvadjian died in Medford, Massachusetts, on 7 October 1947^[2], one week after his eighty-first birthday.