Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery to exhibit Tahir Salahov's paintings

/By AzerNews/

By Amina Nazarli

Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery will for the first time feature the paintings by the famous Azerbaijani artist, Tahir Salahov.

The opening of the exhibition dedicated to the 160th anniversary of the Gallery is scheduled for January 22 and will last until March 20.

The event will put on display the artist’s works from the funds of the Tretyakov Gallery, Russian Museum, National Art Museum of Azerbaijan named after Rustam Mustafayev, Azerbaijan National Art Gallery, Tahir Salahov’s house-museum and private collections.

The exhibition will show how the master’s bright and expressive style has been changed for almost 60 years of his creativity. Salahov's early works showed the life and work of the Baku oil workers and portraits of famous composers, using contrasting red, black, light and dark-grey shades. Later, his paintings became more peaceful and lyrically contemplative, lines became smoother and more melodious, and the palette more sophisticated.

Born in Baku and living in Moscow artist Tahir Salahov is one of the most prominent representatives of the Azerbaijani art. He also has a studio at the Moscow Art Institute.

Salahov is the world-renowned artist, who sensitively catches the rhythms of life and able to listen and hear the time. He is the master of portraits, landscape pictures, still-life paintings and large many-figured paintings.

The artist is the vice-president and honorary president of the International Association of Plastic Arts of UNESCO, the vice-president of the Russian Academy of Arts, People's Artist of the USSR, Azerbaijan and Russia, and is the winner of a number of high awards, including the State Prize of the USSR and Azerbaijan.

The artist became one of the leading representatives of the so-called "severe style", a trend in Soviet art of the 1960s that aimed to set off a hard, publicist, and realist view against the ceremonial "polished reality" of the Joseph Stalin era.

Portraits occupy a special place in Tahir's creative activity. He has painted the portraits of Azerbaijan's foremost composers - Gara Garayev and Fikrat Amirov along with Azerbaijani poet Rasul Rza and Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, to name a few. Each portrait reflects Tahir's efforts to draw out the inner worlds of his subjects.