Exhibition of Rifkat Vakhitov "History and Personality"

Rifkat Mukhamedovich Vakhitov is one of the leading artists of the Republic of Tatarstan, Honored Art Worker and People’s Artist of the Republic of Tatarstan, a corresponding member of the Europe-Asia International Academy, a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR, a member of the VTOO Union of Artists of Russia in the Republic of Tatarstan.

Rifkat Vakhitov was born in 1938 in the city of Izhevsk. He graduated from the Kazan Art College and the Kharkov Art and Industrial Institute. He has extensive experience in teaching. He taught at art universities in Izhevsk, Naberezhnye Chelny, Tashkent and Kazan.

R. M. Vakhitov is a master of a wide creative range: historical paintings, portraits, still lifes. Much effort has been devoted to monumental and decorative painting and architecture. Rifkat Vakhitov designed public buildings in Tashkent, Kazan, Naberezhnye Chelny with monumental murals and mosaics, where he first applied the technique of decorative ceramic tiles.

Knowledge of the history of Islamic art and the traditions of Tatar folk art formed the basis of one of the leading trends in the artist’s work - historical. These are fantasy paintings about the Bulgarian kingdom and the Kazan Khanate, about legendary heroic deeds, about medieval tragedies that turned into inescapable longing and sadness of the common people. The exhibition will be presented for the first time at the opening in the National Art Gallery "Hazine"

triptych “Audience”, a series of paintings “Kazan Khanate”, “Mother’s Prayer” (“Ana Dogas”).

The fundamental genre in the field of easel painting for Rifkat Vakhitov is portraiture. The artist found his approach to the depiction of man - the study of the world in man. His portraits are the “dialectics” of the soul of an outstanding personality. For many years of creative activity, Rifkat Mukhamedovich created a gallery of picturesque portraits of his contemporaries and historical figures, people with extraordinary courage, talent, high sense of civic duty and dignity. The exhibition “History and Personality” will feature portraits of Shigabutdin Mardzhani, Gabdulla Tukai, Salikh Saydashev, Ilgam Shakirov, one of the best in the portrait gallery of the artist “Portrait of Baki Urmanche” and others. For the first time, a portrait of a Muslim political figure executed in 1940 will be on display Mirsaid Sultan-Galiev and the great dancer Rudolf Nureyev.

The exhibition dedicated to the 80th anniversary of Rifkat Mukhamedovich Vakhitov will run until April 29, 2018.