Rakhim Akhmedov

Estate of the Artist
MEROS Association of Antiques of Uzbekistan

Tashkent, District Officer House, New Works of Uzbek Artists, 1960
Moscow, Kuznetsky Most, Rakhim Akhmedov, 1968
Moscow, Central House of Artists, Rakhim Akhmedov 85th Anniversary Exhibition, 2006
Tashkent, Art Gallery of Uzbekistan, Rakhim Akhmedov 90th Anniversary Exhibition, 2011

I. Shostko, Masters of Soviet Art: Catalogue of Works by R. Akhmedov, Moscow 1988, p. 29, illustrated

 

During the summer of 1959, the year in which the present lot was executed, Akhmedov was studying the decorative arts of Southern Uzbekistan. He was inspired by the artistic heritage of the people, in particular the distinctive appearance of the women. Portraits by Akhmedov such as this and Woman from Kashkadarya (1959, State Tretyakov Gallery) are far removed from the modern civilization of either city of Surkhandarya and Kashkadarya. Instead, they draw on the artistic heritage of their subjects.

Akhmedov would make portraits of local agricultural figures while on frequent visits to a group of artists active in Uzbekistan’s cotton-producing regions early in his career. Close contact with the local people stirred in the artist a desire to reproduce impressions of his surroundings, and his efforts were well received with a series of portraits winning him the title of People’s Artist of Uzbekistan in 1961.

Akhmedov, himself a student of Pavel Benkov, contributed to the development of an Uzbek artistic identity by creating a series of bright images of the country’s artists and helping to found a professional school of painting. As such the aspirations of the period and the growing maturity of Uzbekistan and its art can be read through his paintings. An oil on cardboard study for the present lot can be seen in the State Museum of Arts of Uzbekistan, Tashkent.

Catalogue note written by Gayane Umerova, Creative Director, MEROS Association of Antiques of Uzbekistan.