Daughter of Soviet Kirgizia (Russian: Дочь Советской Киргизии) is a painting by Soviet artist Semyon Chuykov. It is the final canvas of the series Kyrgyzia Collective Farm Suite (1939–1948), according to the author's plan, reflecting the changes in the life of Soviet Kyrgyzstan, that occurred in the 1930s and 1940s. According to art historians such as D. V. Sarabyanov, Daughter of Soviet Kirgizia plays a central role in the aforementioned series.
The painting is part of the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery. As of 2012, it could be seen in the permanent exhibition of one of the Soviet painting halls of the New Tretyakov Gallery.Достояние страны: Картина-легенда «Дочь Советской Киргизии». Информационное агентство АКИpress (19 September 2012). Дата обращения: 24 August 2017. The author's reproductions of the painting belong to the in Bishkek and the National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest.
The painting has repeatedly been a representative of Soviet fine art at major exhibitions outside the USSR and the Russian Federation. At the 1958 World's Fair in Brussels, Daughter of Soviet Kirgizia was awarded a gold medal (along with another of Chuykov's paintings, Daughter of Shepherd).
The painting's representation A "sturdy, tanned girl" walks across the steppes of Kirgizia (art historian Jamal Umetalieva wrote of the slow, confident rhythm of the movement). Above her head is a high dome of blue sky, and on the horizon are purple mountains. The girl is wearing a light-coloured dress, a blue velvet sleeveless shirt, and a red kerchief. The sleeveless shirt casts blue reflections on the dress. Her face is calm and warm, rreflectint strict ideas of beauty. Black plaits frame her face with a high forehead. They fall down her back from under her headscarf.
The girl's silhouette stands out in relief against the landscape. The colour emphasises her unity with nature: the blue of the air is intensified in the bright blue of the heroine's blouse. Chuykov used a wide range of blues, reds and ochres and their various subtle combinations and proportions. The sun illuminates the girl's figure, her face and hands as well as the expansive steppe where she walks.
Painting's history
Daughter of Soviet Kirgizia was painted in 1948. It is the final painting of the series Kyrgyzia Collective Farm Suite, begun in 1939 (Chuykov interrupted work on the serie during the World War II).Another dating of the beginning of Chuykov's work on the cycle is found in the thirteen-volume History of Russian Art. In it, the beginning of the work is counted from 1945, when the artist created the painting Song (currently in the Kharkiv Art Museum). Soviet art historian Polikarp Lebedev dated the artist's work on the cycle to 1947–1948. Galina Leontyeva, who devoted a separate large article to the painting, referred to it as a culmination of the artist's entire series, “a symbol of the free East, awakened to an active, independent life”. In her opinion, the painting conveys “the image of a new man, his emerging character, the features of modern life in Kyrgyzstan...in the most concentrated, concise, and expressive form”.
According to the Soviet art historian Elena Zhidkova, Chuykov's originally intended five main paintings in the series Kyrgyzia Collective Farm Suite: Song, Morning, Noon, Evening, Youth (this was the title originally conceived by the artist for the future painting Daughter of Soviet Kyrgyzstan). The environment was to be landscapes and sketches of the artist's everyday impressions. In the series Kyrgyzia Collective Farm Suite, sketches, genre paintings (according to academician Dmitry Sarabyanov, they can be considered as such only conditionally, as they depict neither a specific event nor action), and landscapes coexist. Each painting can be simultaneously perceived as an independent artistic work. As noted by a contemporary historian of fine art, many paintings of this serie had everyday names as Morning, Noon, Evening, and were sketches of everyday life in Kyrgyz villages, and “to the practice of collective farm production had no more relation than Van Gogh’s The Red Vineyards in Arles or Vasnetsov's reapers”. Soviet art historian Anatoly Bogdanov wrote that the title of the series, however, was chosen consciously by the artist: he did not depict the dynamics of labor activity, but poetically interpreted its results. The paintings of the series create a broad panorama of life in the Soviet Republic, but in content and pictorial tasks they are different. This, according to Bogdanov, was due to the great importance of landscape in the paintings of the series — nature does not suppress man, but is in unity with the way of life, customs, and traditions of the people.
The original painting Daughter of Soviet Kyrgyzstan is currently in the collection of the State Tretyakov Gallery in Moscow. It is an oil painting on canvas, of 120 × 95.5 cm (according to the Soviet art historian Evelina Polishchuk, 120 × 95 cm). At the bottom left is the artist's signature and the date of the canvas's creation: S. Chuykov 1948. The painting was acquired by the Tretyakov Gallery from the artist himself in 1949.
Chuykov created the picture in the suburbs of the capital of Soviet Kyrgyzstan, Frunze (now Bishkek). He completed it in his studio, where now there is the Memorial House Museum of S. A. Chuykov (the charcoal portrait of Aizhamal Ogobaeva, the model for the painting, is in the exposition of the House Museum). Chuykov's goal was to create a collective image of a new society man. Researchers tell, that this time he did not create a large number of sketches for the canvas in the form of sketches and studies, although painstaking work on sketches, sketches, and composition was a feature of his creative method.Semyon Chuikov himself told about the need to strictly follow the rule to start with sketches, then move on to sketches, and only after that to take up the painting in the book The Artist's notes. According to them, preparatory works for this painting were considered by Chuykov to be the paintings created in different years that depict Kyrgyz teenage girls: Girl with Cotton (1936), Girl with Sunflower (1939), and Girl with Book (1946). Galina Leontyeva explained this by stating that he worked for many years to create a “generalized, typical image”. All those paintings, according to her, are milestones on the way to creating the image of the girl from the canvas Daughter of Soviet Kyrgyzstan. Each painting contains features, that would be brought together in this final canvas. Chuykov did not limit himself to repetition of what he had already found: in every new painting, he honed the character of his heroine, “making it deeper and more multifaceted”.
Art historians note that one of the characteristics of Chuykov's work is the transfer of a single image from painting to painting, while perfecting it, polishing it, and making it more multifaceted until it is complete. One of the few known sketches for the painting is in the collection of the . Another sketch is mentioned in the catalogue of the artist's works by Dmitry Sarabyanov. It is executed in oil on cardboard in the format 34 × 26 cm. This study is in the collection of the Bulgarian National Art Gallery in Sofia. Another sketch from 1948 is listed on the website of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation (Goskatalogue number 4071982). Painted in oil on cardboard, it measures 33 × 25 cm and is part of the collection of the Bryansk Regional Art Museum and Exhibition Centre (inv. Zh 847),Чуйков Семён Афанасьевич (1902–1980). Народный художник СССР, действительный член АХ СССР, Лауреат 2-х Гос. премий СССР, Лауреат премии им. Джавахарлала Неру. Этюд к картине «Дочь Советской Киргизии». Министерство культуры Российской Федерации. Дата обращения: 3 March 2020. Archive: 22 June 2019. and is kept in its archives. In the summer of 2007, as part of a project commemorating the 250th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Arts, the museum presented the sketch to a wide audience at one of the exhibitions of the series The 20th Century through the Eyes of the Artist.Фонтан или губка? В год 250-летия Российской академии свои фонды представляет Брянский художественный музей в серии выставок «20 век глазами художника». Агентство культурной информации (5 July 2007). Дата обращения: 3 March 2020. Archive: 3 March 2020.
Chuykov himself was very fond of the painting Daughter of Soviet Kyrgyzstan. Tatiana Popova, head of the painting department at the Gapar Aitiev Museum of Fine Arts, believes that for him, it was a symbol of the new life of the Kyrgyz people. In this painting, Chuykov presented his understanding of a new hero, a new man of his homeland, the personification of Soviet Kyrgyzstan.
The author's repetitions of the painting
For the Gapar Aitiev National Museum of Art Chuykov made an author's copy (also 120 × 95.5 cm) in 1950.Семён Афанасьевич Чуйков и его эпоха. 1902–1980 [Simion Afanasyevich Chuykov and his era. 1902-1980] (in Russian). Бишкек: Курама АРТ. 2007. p. 140. At present this is exhibited in the Simion Chuykov Hall of the same museum.
Another repetition of the painting Daughter of Soviet Kyrgizia, was created for the National Museum of Art of Romania in Budapest. The technique is oil painting on canvas, size: 120 × 95 cm. In a monograph on Chuykov's work, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Arts Dmitry Sarabyanov mentions this canvas twice, but does not date its execution. In Elena Zhidkova's catalogue it is dated 1951.
In December 2006, Kommersant Weekend magazine reported on another version of the painting, offered at the Half a Century of Soviet Art Auction in Moscow. Kommersant Weekend referred to the canvas as "the famous girl with books". The information was published that at the established preauction price of 16-20 thousand dollars, after a long rivalry between the buyer, who was present in the hall, and his competitor, who communicated with the auction staff by phone: the price rose to 85 thousand dollars. However, the official website of the SovCom Auction shows as lot number 45 a completely different painting with the same title (Daughter of Soviet Kyrgizia). It is from the 1940s, has a small format (47.5 × 31.5 cm), and is an oil painting on cardboard. The painting depicts a young woman smiling at the viewer, carrying on her left shoulder a basket filled to the brim with fruit.Дочь Советской Киргизии. Лот: № 45. Автор: Чуйков С. А. SovCom. Дата обращения: 17 February 2020. Archive: 3 August 2020. The catalog of the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis (USA), published in 2006, mentions a version of Chuykov's painting Daughter of Soviet Kirgizia (canvas, oil, 47 × 37 cm) made by the author. It had come from a private collection (when this happened is not stated in the catalogue). The creation of this version of the painting is dated 1950 in the catalogue.
Acknowledgment and awards