Background

Javad Mirjavadov was born on January 19, 1923 in Baku, Azerbaijan. His father Mirhashim Miijavadov was a prosperous furrier and the family lived comfortably. The Mitjavadovs came from a family of Sayids (an honorary title for descendants of the Prophet Muhammad); his grandfather, Javad Mirgasim, was a popular healer and ascetic.

Education

Javad Mirjavadov did not join art groups as a child. He drew on any suitable surface, "whether a fence or paper".

Recognising his son’s possession by the fine arts, Javad’s father approached art school director Azim Azimzade, who lived on the same street as the Mirjavadovs, and asked him to assess the boy’s abilities. In 1941 Javad Mirjavadov easily passed all the exams and entered Baku Art School. Although in his youth he had already mastered academic drawing, historical and genre painting and achieved a certain degree of professional maturity on the threshold of his artistic career, he rejected it all.

Because of his particular vision of art and his dislike for cliche he was often in conflict with teachers. The consequences were that he frequently left the school and completed it much later than his classmates, only in 1949. During his studies, the painter’s restless spirit and inquisitive nature began to manifest themselves in his creative individualism. But the real spark that awakened Miкjavadov’s creative self struck when in his student years he saw a reproduction of Cezanne’s painting "Mardi Gras". This was one of the most significant events in his life, and from that day Javad set off in search of his individual artistic style.

Career

In 1940, Javad Mirjavadov got a job at the ‘Azerbaijan’ cinema as an assistant to the poster painter. He quickly mastered the art and within six months was working by himself. However, under the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of Criminal Liability for absenteeism and voluntary departure, he was convicted of being late for work and was sent to Bailov prison for six months.

On his release, his passion for drawing increased and became all-consuming. He put into his drawings all the impressions he received from life - he painted all he saw: portraits of family and friends, sea ports, fishermen, mule carts.

Cezanne was the painter who led him to great art. Javad was at that time one of the few to feel deeply and accept unconditionally the complex system of relationships of colour, shape and space of the famous post-impressionists. He always identified Cezanne with spiritual and creative progression.

In 1949, the painter went to Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) and then to Moscow to review international works of art. Here he met Pyotr Konchalovsky and Alexander Osmerkin, famous Russian followers of Cezanne.

A year later Mirjavadov came back to Leningrad. For five years he literally studied the walls of the Hermitage, improvising European classical paintings using Cezanne’s methods. In the 1950s he created a series of free variations based on paintings by Velazquez, El Greco, Rubens and Titian. At the same time he developed his own programme for a thorough study of the principal roots of all great world culture.

The analysis and synthesis of various visual techniques and styles he conducted in the Hermitage produced new paintings, dominated by a blue-green monochrome. The development of his stylistic and chromatic conversion of colour harmony - the painter’s creative credo - began in these crucial formative years.

Unfortunately, in succeeding years he destroyed almost all the paintings of the Hermitage period. Only three pictures are still in existence. Two of them are variations on Picasso - "Weeping" and "Male Portrait" (1951). The third painting is "Woman’s Head" (1954).

However, in the 1950s he was also studying the art of the East and Africa in Leningrad’s Museum of Ethnography. Javad Mirjavadov came to his understanding of art through discoveries in painting and drawing, exploring and synthesizing all that he saw in the Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkammer).

He returned to Azerbaijan in the mid-1950s to found a new era of creative exploration and expression in Azerbaijan painting.

In the fifties, for the first time in the history of Azerbaijani art, Mirjavadov began to create abstract bas-reliefs, using resin, bitumen, iron rods, nitrocellulose enamel, stone and wood. Almost all of these bas-reliefs, new in form and spirit, are lost now. Only four of that series of works are still in existence: "Tengri", "Relief Composition", "Abstract Composition" and "Fragments of Composition". They are dated 1955-1966. A series of interesting paintings date back to this period, where the painter demonstrated total possession of the picture.

In 1968, he created his “The Giant Bride”, continuing the experiment and research into a simplified form. Besides, a new generation of characters was added to his gallery of artistic images in the 1970s - monsters.

In 1985, Mirjavadov set out on a series of paintings dedicated to outstanding people. Despite living in isolation, he engaged in dialogues through his works with the world’s great figures and intellectuals, including Federico Garcia Lorca, Albert Schweitzer, Salvador Dali, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Huseyn Javid. He allocated special places to significant people in his works, dedicating canvases to them, sometimes entire series. For example, in 1988, he painted a picture in memory of the great Spanish poet Federico Garcia Lorca.

However, his works were rarely allowed into exhibitions. It was only in 1970 that Javad Mirjavadov first participated in a group exhibition of the Artists’ Union of Azerbaijan.

In 1983, Javad Mirjavadov had a severe heart attack. This provoked a new stage in his work, including the series "Dialogue with Death" and "Anthem of the Ages".

Mirjavadov was able to organize his first solo exhibition in January 1987, in the Vajiha Samadova Hall of the Artists’ Union, when he was 64. His first solo exhibition outside the country was held the same year, 1987, at the Central House of Writers in Moscow. Mirjavadov went abroad for the first time only in 1989.

In 1991, an exhibition of his paintings opened to an almost empty hall at Moscow’s Central House of Artists (CHA). On that day there was a coup, and the CHA had hundreds of weapons pointing at it.

On 24 June 1992 Mirjavadov died during his trip by train. Although he was seriously ill and unrecognized, throughout his life he proved that he was a true artist and patriot of his motherland.

Achievements

• Javad Mirjavadov was known as an outstanding artist and patriot of his motherland. In 1988 he was awarded the title of Honoured Artist of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Moreover, a documentary film "This is Javad" was made about him, and reproductions of his paintings were published in the journal "Gobustan".

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Shoeing a bull

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1971
  • At the Threshing - floor

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1968
  • Portrait

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1951
  • Walloving Horse

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1970
  • Relief Composition

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1958
  • Firing Squard

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1970
  • Composition in Blue

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1958
  • Technoerotica

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1958
  • Predators

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1972
  • Walloving Horse

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1979
  • Bride of Fire

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

  • Occupation

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1978
  • God of Fire

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1987
  • Performance

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1978
  • Dwarf Holding a Candle

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1972
  • Zoroastrian Priestess

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1977
  • Somnambula

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1986
  • Den

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1982
  • Tamas. The One Who is Awake

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1984
  • Lethargy

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1983
  • The light of hope

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1982
  • Bride-Giantess

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1977
  • On the red sofa

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1978
  • Fire

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1972
  • Passion

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1980
  • Mental Hospital

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1980
  • Arena

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1982
  • Noah’s Ship

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1987
  • Relief

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1986
  • Mani’s Ship

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1987
  • Woman with Pumpkin

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1984
  • Movement

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1986
  • The Humay Bird

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1984
  • Bride

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1978
  • From the series "Hymn of centuries"

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1986
  • Kidnapping

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1981
  • Hymn of centuries

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1986
  • Luminescent Rider

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1986
  • Collage

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1965
  • Caspian Boat

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1987
  • Phaeton

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1968
  • From the series "Hymn of centuries"

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1986
  • Mafiosi

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1984
  • Gabon

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1986
  • Motherhood

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1987
  • Motherhood

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1986
  • Dedicated to El Greco

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1987
  • Physiological Attraction

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1959
  • Motherhood

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1988
  • Inspired by Byzantine Icon of the Mother of God

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1987
  • Dedicated to the Azerbaijan Playwright Hüseyn Javid

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1986
  • Fragment from Panorama of the Unity of Diversity

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1987
  • Motherhood

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1987
  • Notr Dam

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1962
  • Draft for a Sculpture

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1958
  • Portrait

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1960
  • Giri

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1987
  • Drawing of a Man

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1960
  • The Silk Way

    (This painting can be found at the Azerbaijan National Mus...)

    1989
  • Weeping

    (Interpretation of a work by Pablo Picasso. This painting ...)

    1953

Views

Although Javad Mirjavadov was Azerbaijani by the origin and knew Muslim culture and art, he focused mainly on global civilization. He viewed and praised the eternal human values through reflection and transformation of ancient into modern myth.

For Javad Mirjavadov there were clear boundaries between the concepts of good and evil and the artist’s duty was to preserve those borders. Of course he could not have created such multilayered works of art if he had not lived such a rich spiritual and intellectual life. He displayed excellent knowledge of the mythologies of the Turkic, Egyptian, Babylonian and Indian peoples, as well as that of Zoroastrianism.

Quotations: "When I die, you must look at my eyes. If they are closed, it means that I was born to be a musician, but if they are open - then my way of life was correct..."

Membership

Javad Mirjavadov was admitted into the Artists’ Union of Azerbaijan in 1975.

Interests

• music, books

Connections

Javad Mirjavadov was married.

Father:

Mirhashim Miijavadov

Grandfather:

Javad Mirgasim

Friend:

Chingiz Aitmatov

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.
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