Background

Нayat Abdullaeva was born on October 14, 1912 in Baku, Azerbaijan. She was the daughter of the famous fish industry man Hamdulla Abdullayev. She was exiled to Kazakhstan in 1930 with her mother after her father was shot.

Education

Нayat Abdullaeva finished Baku Art School named after Azim Azimzade in 1944. In 1950 she graduated from Leningrad Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture named after I.Y. Repin (nowadays Ilya Repin St. Petersburg State Academic Institute for Painting, Sculpture and Architecture).

Career

In 1953 Нayat Abdullaeva took up a theme of motherhood in her work. For implementation of this idea Abdullayeva opted for a female figure standing by herself with a kid in her raised arms, whose image symbolized not only maternal love, but also sounded like a symbol of rebirth, renewal and prosperity that were deficient in the young country that had survived the most difficult years of the struggle for peace.

Along with the monumental sculpture Kh. Abdullaeva worked a lot in the genre of indoor plastic, creating images of favorite characters - Mashadi Ibad, Aunt from "Arshin Mai Alan" comedy. She also made a series of porcelain figurines on the work of N. Ganjavi "Seven Beauties".

In 1960 Abdullayeva took up the embodiment of a heroic portrait of Hajar, whose image will forever remain in the history as an image of a woman, defending ordinary people, who took closely their worries and sorrows. The heroic female image executed in the sharp expressive spontaneous movement identified Abdullayeva’s bent to overall humanization of ideological search, to search for heroic topics and motives.

Formation of Abdullayeva’s career is an ongoing process of stylistic development from sequestered and "frozen" Soviet sculpture towards lively spiritual dynamic composition.

In 1963 Abdullaeva again tried to address the topic of motherhood and began working on "Lay-lay" (Lullaby) sculpture. In 1980s this monument decorated the lobby of Khatai Maternity Home perfectly blending with the overall interior of the building.

In 1978 Abdullayev started working on a bust of Natavan, thereby raising the bar of her skills up to the level of the complex disclosure of the nature of a historical figure, the great poetess that Natavan was.

Achievements

• Нayat Abdullaeva was named an Honored Artist of the Azerbaijan SSR in 1964. Her best known works included works, based on Nizami's poem "Seven beauties"; "Lovers" and "Hajar".
  
  In addition, in 2014, Yavar Rzayev, a film director, shot a movie, called "The Light of My Eyes or the Life of a Strange Sculptor", dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Hayat Abdullayeva.

Works

More photos

• sculpture

  • A game

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

    1965
  • Meshadi ibad

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Aunt

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art )

  • Talysh woman

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Bahram Gur

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art )

    1957
  • Poetess Khurshud Banu Natavan

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art )

    1979
  • Lullaby

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

    1963
  • Beauty of Iran

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art )

    1957
  • Lovers

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art )

    1960
  • Beauty of India

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art )

    1957
  • Beauty of Magrib

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

    1957
  • Slavic Beauty

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art )

    1957
  • Beauty of China

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

    1957
  • Beauty of Kharezm

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

    1957
  • Beauty of Rum

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

    1957
  • Hajar

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art )

    1959
  • Hajar

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

    1959

Connections

Father:

Hamdulla Abdullayev

References

• "Servet" series of albums. The National Heritage project. The National Heritage project. As part of The National Heritage project implemented by Xalq Bank, Azerbaijan National Museum of Art under the head of Chingiz Farzaliyev prepared the "Servet" series of albums dedicated to the masters of Azerbaijani art.
  2013