Background

Huseyn Aliyev was born on April 1911, in Jomerdly village, Zangezur Region, Azerbaijan.

Education

Huseyn Aliyev spent his childhood in a village situated in the mountains of Zangezur which beauty later inspired him on his major series. As a teenager, Aliyev relocated with his family to Nakhchivan where he contemplated again the picturesque paysages of mountainous lands which influenced the subject of his future works.

In 1925, after graduating from secondary school, Aliyev entered Nakhchivan Pedagogical College. In a couple of years, he enrolled at Baku Art College. While at the institution, he created highly professional works that weren’t typical for young students.

In 1932, Aliyev pursued his studies at the Department of Graphics of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts. He absorbed the characteristics of national and European art, both classic and vanguard, the examples of which were widely presented in the galleries and museums of the city at that time. He showed his excellent abilities in drawing and portraiture. As to landscape genre, he appreciated the Russian lyrical landscape classics.

Career

Huseyn Aliyev started his career in the early 1920s. From 1922 to 1931, he worked in the ‘Molla Nasreddin’ magazine. In 1927, he joined the staff of the republican state newspaper ‘Communist’ as an artist.

Aliyev took part in the Second World War from 1942 to 1945. After the conflict, he returned to his artistic activity and served as an art director in ‘Communist’ newspaper till his retirement in 1987. During this period, Aliyev expressed his emotional attitude to political and social changes through multiple templates of separate pages and columns, cartoons, and caricatures.

The conceptual landscapes made in monotyping technique occupied the most important place in the career of the artist. Being the central subject of Aliyev’s mature period, these abstract and symbolic images reflected the beauty and the author’s love for his homeland through the variety of spots of an illusive color palette that often created an illusion of a mosaic. The Snake Mountain of Nakhchivan area was the most favorite and frequent motives of Huseyn Aliyev who depicted it many times in oil, watercolors, and monotyping technique.

In addition to the lyrical abstract landscapes in which he reflected the beauty and love for his homeland, Aliyev also created a number of realistic portraits and self-portraits that helped the viewer to catch the inner world of the painted person. The most expressive examples of the oil and watercolor pictures in the genre were created at the end of the 1930s and the begging of 1940s, like ‘Portrait of my wife’.

The artist never painted to order choosing his relatives and familiars as the models. It was only by 1970s when he started the approach focused on sincerity and deep understanding of model’s individual character and turned to more generalized and idealized depictions of well-known personalities, including icons of national culture, politicians, and other public figures.

Graphical heritage of Aliyev was also represented by multiple sketches made with charcoal, black chalk, feather, or Indian ink. Although of a small format, the black and white drawings on yellowed papers can be considered as truly independent works.

The political and social posters Aliyev produced during World War II were among the best works in the agitprop genre. The bright, definite, and catchy images of the posters calling the citizens to defend their Motherland were reinforced by text.

Achievements

• Huseyn Aliyev is considered as the best representatives of the monotyping technique. An accomplished artist, he created more than 250 paintings.
  
  The contributions Aliyev made to the national culture were marked by the titles of Honoured Artist (1977) and People’s Artist of Azerbaijan (1982). As a participant of the Second World War, the painter was also a recipient of such distinctions as medals ‘For the defense of Caucasus’, ‘For a valiant labor at the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945’, ‘30 years of Victory at The Great Patriotic War 1941-1945’, and with the Order of Peoples Friendship.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • April Night. Baku Boulevard

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Blast

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Blast

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Blast in the Mountains

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Blast in the Mountains

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Blast

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Cave

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Crater

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Evening at the Moonlight

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Fire

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Flood

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Golden Autumn

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Golden Autumn

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Golden Rock

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Iceberg

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Lachin

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Lake in the Mountains

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Lake in the Mountains

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Lake in the Mountains

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Landscape

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Malachite Rocks

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Marble

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Meadow

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Moon

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Moonlight in the Mountains

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Mountain after Blast

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Mountain Lake

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Mountain Sort

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Mountains Sort

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Mountains

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Nakhchivan Mountains

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Oil Spot

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • On the Bank of Kur River

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Portrait of a Woman

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Portrait of an Artist

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Portrait of Frangiz

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Portrait of Nargiz

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Portrait of Poet Ahmad Jamil

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Rock

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Self-portrait

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Stone Sort

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Stone Sort

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Stone Sort

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Sunset in Gobustan

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Summer in the Mountains

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Sunrise

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Sunrise

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Tovuz Mountains

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Tree

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Tree

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Waterfall

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Wet Meadow

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Winter in Nakhchivan

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

  • Winter in the Mountains

    (Azerbaijan National Museum of Art)

Views

Huseyn Aliyev was a romantic and emotional painter. Generality and selectivity were the integral characteristics of his works. The artist appreciated the sharpness and beauty of the moment that will never repeat itself.

Aliyev never used the camera to catch the moment. Instead, he created graphics sketches with coal, black and red chalks, thin color markers both on plein-air and in a workshop.

Huseyn Aliyev had a unique talent to reflect the spiritual and emotional side of the landscapes that seemed usual at first sight. All the works on the genre can be formally divided into conceptual and situational landscapes. When the first group is characterized by aesthetic and artistic desire of the author, the second one is mostly represented by studies and sketches.

Quotations: "The nature itself is my teacher."

Membership

Huseyn Aliyev became a member of the Artists Union of the USSR in 1940.

• Artists Union of the USSR , Soviet Union

  1940

Personality

Huseyn Aliyev is described by those who knew him as a calm and openhearted person. He was fascinated by beauty, in particular, of nature, peace, and harmony.

Connections

Huseyn Aliyev had a daughter named Nargiz and a grandson Adalat.

Daughter:

Nargiz Aliyeva

Huseyn Aliyev with his daughter.

Brother:

Heydar Aliyev

References

• "Servet" series of albums. 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