Tahir Salahov

Tahir Salahov(Azerbaijani,in full:Tahir Teymur oğlu Salahov,Russian:Таир Теймур Салахов;29 November 1928 – 21 May 2021) was aSoviet,Azerbaijanipainter and draughtsman. He was First Secretary of theArtists' Union of the USSR(1973–1992), Vice-President of theRussian Academy of Arts,member of over 20 academies and other creative organizations throughout the world, including academies of art ofFrance,Spain,Germany,andAustria.He was awarded the honorary titlesPeople's Artist of the USSR(1973), andPeople's Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR.

Tahir Salahov
Salahov in 2018
Born	Tahir Teymur oğlu Salahov (1928-11-29)29 November 1928 Baku,Azerbaijan SSR,Soviet Union
Died	21 May 2021(2021-05-21)(aged 92) Berlin,Germany
Nationality	Azerbaijani
Movement	Realism

Biography

Salahov was born inBaku.His father Teymur Salahov was a victim ofStalin's repressions,having been arrested in 1937 and executed shortly after. His mother Sona was left to bring up four children on her own but the family did not learn of their father's death until 1956 after Stalin's death.

Tahir Salahov studied at the Azimzade Art College in Baku in 1945–1950 and theSurikov Moscow Art Institutein 1951–1957. Salahov won an early recognition: his diploma work,The Shift is Over,was exhibited in 1957 at the Moscow All-Union Art Exhibition and received public and critical acclaim. He became one of the leading representatives of the so-called "severe style"(Russian: "суровый стиль" ), a trend in Soviet art of the 1960s that aimed to set off a hard, publicist, realist view against the ceremonial "polished reality" of theJoseph Stalinera. Salahov's compositions on the life and work of the Baku oil-workers (e.g. "Repair Men", 1961,Mustafayev Azerbaijan State Museum of Art,Baku) and portraits, e.g., hisportraitof Azerbaijani composerGara Garayev(1960,Tretyakov Gallery,Moscow), and Soviet composerDmitri Shostakovich(1976,Tretyakov Gallery,Moscow), are characterized by a forcefulness and lack of idealization. Salahov chose a sparing palette of contrasting red, black, light- and dark-grey tones and gave colored plains a decorative function.

His later works are more peaceful and lyrically contemplative, and Eastern influences are more apparent, as in Portrait of Grandson Dan (1983, Azerbaijan State Museum of Art), in which the composition and colouring are subordinate to the flowing rhythms of Eastern medieval miniatures. His lines became smoother and more melodious, his palette more sophisticated. Many of his most successful works are associated with his impressions of foreign countries (e.g., MexicanCorrida;1969, Mustafayev Azerbaijan State Museum of Art). He also produced expressive drawings and stage designs. In 1998, Salahov was appointed an Academician of theNational Academy of Arts of the Kyrgyz Republic,alongside fellow artistsDurdy Bayramov,Suhrob Kurbanov,Turgunbai Sadykov,andErbolat Tolepbai.

Awards

Salahov's paintingAidan(1967) on a 2011 stamp of Russia

• Hero of Socialist Labour(1989)
• Order "For Merit to the Fatherland",2nd class (2003)
• Order "For Merit to the Fatherland", 3rd class (1998)
• Order of Lenin(1989)
• Order of the October Revolution(1976)
• Order of the Red Banner of Labour(1971)
• Order of Friendship of Peoples(1982)
• People's Artist of the USSR (visual arts)(1973)
• USSR State Prize(1968 – for the portrait of composer Gara Garayev)

See also

• House-Museum of Tahir Salahov

External links

• Salahov’s paintings at AZgallery.org
• "Tahir Salahov, A Hint of Red – Pushing the Limits of Socialist Realism"by Azad Sharifov and Jean Patterson in Azerbaijan International, Vol 7:2 (Summer 1999), pp. 51–54.]
• "Oil Rocks in the Caspian: Birthplace to a New Trend in Soviet Art,"by Betty Blair in Azerbaijan International, Vol. 14:2 (Summer 2006), pp. 46–55
• "Deafening Silence: Waiting 18 Years for Father to Return Home" by Tahir and Zarifa Salahovin Azerbaijan International, Vol. 13.4 (Winter 2005), pp. 80–87.
• Salahov in Russian Academy of Arts (in Russian)
• Azeri Artists Take on the World