Famous Uzbek painters Plan

Birth of a Child

Oil on canvas. 67 x 79cm

ElenaKorovai

In the Former Ghetto, Bukhara. 1932. Oil on canvas.72.5 x 71.5cm



Elena Korovay (1901-1974)

Korowai spent her childhood in Harbin, where her father was a railway station manager and her mother was an actress. During the First World War, she studied in St. Petersburg at the School for the Promotion of the Arts under the direction of K. Roerich and I. Naumov. In 1917, she moved to her parents ' house in Barnaul, where she joined a left-wing group of artists who were looking for and introducing new art forms (M. Kurzin, V. Gulyaev, and then V. Markova). She worked as a teacher in the school-studio of the Altai Art Studios department. In 1920-1923 Korovay studied at VKHUTEMAS (Higher Art and Technical Workshops) and traveled extensively throughout the country.

In 1920, she settled in Central Asia, first in Tashkent, then in Samarkand. She worked as an artist in theaters and in the Samarkand Studio of Fine Arts. She wrote and illustrated books for children, including "The Frog and Milk", "Two Brothers", "Kindergarten" and played a major role in the creation of the Samarkand branch of the Union of Artists. In 1946, at the invitation of V. Favorsky, she moved to Moscow, where she first worked at a toy factory. In 1950, she helped Favorsky work on a mosaic panel for the building of the Soviet Embassy in Warsaw (until 1955). In the late 1950s, she returned to easel painting. In 1969, she joined the MOSKHA (Moscow Society of Soviet Artists). Her works "In the Former Ghetto, Bukhara "and" Dyers " are part of Korovai's series of works on Bukharian Jews.