Tair Salakhov

Gekkoso Gallery, Tokyo

Tokyo, Gekkoso Gallery, Tair Salakhov, 1980, no.3

Exhibition catalogue Tair Salakhov, Tokyo: Gekkoso Gallery, 1980, p.7, no.3 illustrated

Original canvas. There are frame abrasions along the edges with associated paint loss in the lower right corner. There is some craquelure to the floor in the foreground. Inspection under UV light does not reveal any apparent signs of retouching. Held in a gold painted frame with plaster mouldings. Unexamined out of frame.
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Azerbaijan’s most celebrated artist Tair Salakhov studied at the Azimzade State School of Art in Baku and the Surikov Institute of Art in Moscow. The first decade of his career coincided with the relatively liberal period of Khrushchev’s Thaw. Salakhov established himself as a leading representative of the ‘Severe Style’ – a reaction against the superficial gloss of socialist realism that aimed to glorify the state. He was chosen to represent the USSR at the 1962 Venice Biennale and was soon after awarded the State Prize for three of his paintings from the 1960s, including Portrait of Kara Karaev (1960, State Tretyakov Gallery).

The present lot is a version of the celebrated portrait of the artist’s youngest daughter Aidan, now in the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery, and was painted specifically for his 1980 solo exhibition at Gekkoso Gallery in Tokyo (the earlier one was on loan for exhibition in Moscow). Aidan recalls sitting for the original portrait in the summer of 1967, hot and restless in her white fur coat and rocking on the horse to cool down. An accomplished artist in her own right, Aidan is the subject of many of her father’s portraits, including Aidan Drawing (1977) and Aidan, The Eastern Star (2005-2006).

An intimate portrait, it nonetheless uses the same restrained palette of contrasting red, white and black that is found in Salakhov’s formal portraits of the Soviet cultural elite, including Fikret Amirov, Dmitri Shostakovich and Kara Karayev (fig.2). Alexander Rozhin, a leading specialist on Salakhov, described the portrait of Aidan as not only one of the artist's finest paintings, but also as one of the most remarkable images of childhood in the history of modern art. It was rapturously received and has become an iconic image of Soviet childhood. (‘Tair Salakhov. Art and Personality’, State Tretyakov Gallery Magazine, no.3, 2008, p.93). Indeed, it was so popular that it was reproduced as a stamp in Russia in 2011.