Beyukaga Mirzazade

February 21, 1921 (age 86)

Fatmayı, Absheron Rayon, Azerbaijan

Boyukagha Mirzazade began his artistic career at the beginning of the Second World War. He wasn’t admitted to the army because of the poor eyesight but struggled in the rear drawing anti-fascist and agitprop posters which inspired people on victory and heroism. One of the first significant projects, he worked on as a painter alongside his fellow artist Mikayil Abdullayev, became a 1939 commission on the large-scale picture titled ‘Break Time at the Opera Theatre’. In 1942, he joined the teacher’s staff of Baku Technical School of the Arts where he taught till 1955. As to the artistic activity of the period, Mirzazade experimented with techniques, themes, and genres throughout the decade. The main subject of his oeuvre of the time was his native country, its history, architecture, and heroes. The composition ‘Babek’s Great March’ dedicated to one of Azerbaijan’s national heroes, Babek, was among the examples. Presented at the 1943 exhibition “Works by Azerbaijani Artists during the Great Patriotic War” in Moscow, it attracted the viewers’ attention. Many of Mirzazade’s landscapes of the time reflected the beauty of Baku, showing both its architectural heritage and newly constructed buildings. Mirzazade painted hardworking people, laborers, collective farmers what can be seen on such works like ‘Red Soldiers as the Farmer’s Guests’ and ‘In a Cotton Field’. The creative pursuit led the artist to adopt a precise and balanced design, local color, and complete compositional structure instead of his beloved Impressionism. The change in the style was followed by the change of the subject. In the 1950s, Beyukaga Mirzazade turned to such topics as industry and literature. He visited the legendary Oil Rocks that inspired him to create a series of industrial landscapes showing oil wells, piers as the central elements and oilmen as only the part of the composition. Mirzazade collaborated for several years with Nizami Museum of Azerbaijani Literature and contributed to it a number of the portraits featuring many eminent literary figures from Azerbaijani literature. The artist also tried himself as an illustrator and took on a form of paintings his impressions from the poems of Nizami Ganjavi’s ‘Khamsa’ displaying the subtleties of the national characteristics, decoration, harmony, and miniature. Mirzazade’s portraits and paintings showing the country’s historical heroes, poets, and writers decorates the walls of almost every room of the Museum. The working trips to various Azerbaijani regions and several places overseas occupy an important place in the artist’s oeuvre. While traveling to Gadabey, Mingachevir, and Lenkeran, the artist created many precious landscapes, still lifes, and studies, like ‘An Evening in Mingachevir’, that celebrated the natural beauty he observed and expanded his professional palette. Mirzazade also found inspirations in many cities abroad, in particular, Prague, Bratislava which then were the part of Czechoslovakia. In 1960, he gathered all the paintings from the trips into an exhibition ‘On Czechoslovakia’ which received good reviews from critics and art lovers. Another destination of Mirzazade’s working journey was France where he worked under the impression from the art of Impressionists that he explored. In particular, the artist produced a series of magnificently colored paintings about ballet, the topic he borrowed from Degas. During the course of his career, Boyukagha Mirzazade demonstrated the brilliant skills in set design. While working as a head artist at Azerbaijan State Theatre of Musical Comedy from 1965 to 1976, he created the sets for many plays that turned to be successful, like ‘Qaynana’ (Mother in Law), or ‘Beggar Son of a Millionaire’. He also tried his hand in decorative murals. His major projects in the area include the boards for the Ministry of Education, the Lenin Palace of Culture, and the murals for other important building of Azerbaijan. Although concentrated on the creative process, Mirzazade made time to transmit his rich experience to young generations. So, he worked at Azerbaijan State University of Culture and Art serving as a department head in 1976. From 2002 till the end of his days, the artist taught at Azerbaijan State Academy of Fine Arts where he also led a creative workshop.

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