Rasim Babayev

Biography

In 1949 Rasim Babayev graduated from the Azimzade art school in Baku and went to study in Moscow. By some accounts he was unable to obtain his diploma from the Surikov Institute: he was accused of formalism, the charge then used against art seen as departing from official Soviet taste.

He was born in Baku on 31 December 1927. After school, in 1945, he entered the Azerbaijan State Art School named after Azim Azimzade and graduated in 1949. He then studied at the Surikov Moscow Art Institute; the year of graduation is given as 1955 in some places and 1956 in others. In 1959 he was admitted to the Union of Artists of Azerbaijan, the professional association of artists in the republic. In the 1950s and 1960s he worked mainly in graphic art, lithography and linocut. Works known from these years include “Oil Tanks” and “Oil Refilling”, “Girl” and “Black City” (all 1958), “Portrait of a Worker” (1962), “In Germany” (1963), “Gobustan” and “Khinalig” (both 1964), “Camels” (1966), “Baths” and “Gachag Nabi” (both 1969), “Old Baku”, “Pomegranates” and “Ancient Cemetery” (all 1970). Some of these sheets are tied to places he saw: the roads of Dashkasan, the Absheron peninsula, Gobustan, the mountain village of Khinalig.

He illustrated many books. Stories by Yusif Vazir Chamanzaminli (1959), Rabindranath Tagore’s “Disaster” (1958) and poems by Nazim Hikmet appeared with his illustrations, as did children’s books: Suleyman Sani Akhundov’s “Scary Tales” (1958), Fuzuli’s “The Dispute of the Fruits” (1960), Ali Shaig’s “Tiq-tiq Khanim” (1961) and the folk tale “The Dwarf” (1963). The folklore, tales and epics of Azerbaijan, according to scholars, did much to shape his outlook.

Later oil became his main medium. He painted bright pictures with anthropomorphic creatures, most often divs and angels: “Woman and Giant” (1986), “Adam and Eve” (1988), “Giants” (2004). Among his other canvases are “Land” (1963), “Coast” (1965), “Road” (1966), “Near East” (1967), “Family” (1971), “Traveler” (1974), “Door” (1982), “Novruz” (1983), “Tragedy” (1987), “Camel Loaded” (1992) and “Night” (2003). From reproductions, I have the impression that spare lines and large planes of colour matter more to him than detail. In Soviet times many of these works were hardly shown. In the late 1980s and the 1990s he turned to recent events. The painting “Bloody General” concerns the events of 20 January 1990 in Baku. “No More War”, “Berlin-63”, “Death Camp” and “Brother’s Memory” were conceived as antiwar works. There are also the series “Year of the Dragon”, “Dreams” and “Sinbad’s Ships”, and the cycle “Refugees”.

He was named Honored Art Worker of the Azerbaijan SSR in 1964 and People’s Artist of the republic in 1988 (on 7 May). For a series of paintings made in 1988–1989 he received the State Prize of the Azerbaijan SSR for 1990, awarded in 1991. From 11 June 2002 he was granted a personal stipend from the President of Azerbaijan.

He went on working trips abroad, and exhibitions devoted to different countries were held more than once. His works have been shown in Britain, Canada, Turkey and Finland, and are held in the Tretyakov Gallery, in the Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow, in the Zimmerli Museum in the United States and in the Galerie de France in Paris. In April 2014 the exhibition “In Search of Truth” opened at the Hermitage-Kazan Centre, and on 29 October of that year at the Marble Palace of the Russian Museum in St Petersburg, where Leyla Aliyeva, vice-president of the Heydar Aliyev Foundation, attended the opening.

Babayev died in Baku in April 2007; by some accounts on 24 April, by others on the 22nd.