In Uzbekistan at the beginning of the 20th century, there was no persistent tradition of picture posters. As a rule, posters and public announcements were designed only with different variants of catchy art fonts. This trend continued for a long time. The exhibition presents several posters from the second half of the twenties of the XX century, inviting the public to the premises of the Kukeldash madrasah, to the stage of the People's House of the old city (now the A. Khidoyatov Drama Theater) to the performances of the national musical theater. These are examples of bilingual font posters typical of old Tashkent.

 

But already in 1918, the "Windows of TurkROSTA", where satirical propaganda posters with drawings and caricatures on topical topics were regularly exhibited, began to work on the Voskresensky market (now Teatralnaya Square). These were originals and were not originally replicated. Only in the late 1920s, posters began to reproduce newspapers and magazines in Uzbekistan, especially the popular Mushtum. The artists S. Malt, I. Tullya and Usto Mumin (A. Nikolaev) were considered recognized masters of the poster genre at that time. The state viewed the poster as a military means of political agitation. The artists strove to promptly respond to the events that worried everyone and to take, as it were, a personal part in the restructuring of reality. From the artistic point of view, in the poster production, schematic solutions of works were completely allowed. Therefore, today many posters are perceived rather as characteristic documents of their time.

 

However, the achievements of poster artists in Uzbekistan have steadily grown. Before the Second World War, Vladimir Kaidalov (1907-1985) was the recognized leader of a brigade of graphic artists who worked in the poster genre. The exhibition presents his work of 1942 "There will be a holiday on our street" (№88 from the series of posters "Strike the enemy"). This is one of his most famous posters. V. Kaidalov (he was later awarded the title "People's Artist of Uzbekistan") attached great importance to the "poster" part of his own work, and he chose the work "There will be a holiday on our street" from many dozens of posters created by him over half a century for the final exhibition dedicated to 70th anniversary of his creative activity (Tashkent - 1977). His very first anti-fascist poster was printed in mass circulation on the third day after the outbreak of World War II.

 

Another master of the Uzbek poster was People's Artist of Uzbekistan Konstantin Cheprakov (1907-1972). From his military works at the exhibition, you can see the propaganda poster of 1941 "Victory Depends on Us". The artists A. Venediktov, B. Zhukov, V. Rozhdestvensky and others did a lot in the genre of anti-fascist posters. In Tashkent, at the very beginning of the war (from July 27 to August 10, 1941), the first republican exhibition of anti-fascist posters was successfully held, where Uzbek graphic artists demonstrated many topical original works. The authors of the posters tried to achieve deep inner expressiveness in generalized images. With extreme brevity, all the components of the poster, all the artistic means were important here: the elaboration of the drawing, and the reality of the colors, and the clarity of the text. Among these posters is the work of the Honored Art Worker of Uzbekistan Boris Zhukov (1906-1987) with Gorky's words "If the enemy does not surrender, he is destroyed."

 

An interesting exhibit of the exhibition is a poster with the Polish banner and the inscription “Polacy do broni” (Poles - to war!). This is also a part of our history. As you know, in 1942, a division under the command of General Vladislav Anders was formed in Tashkent from the interned Polish soldiers, which later covered itself with glory on the battlefields against fascism in North Africa. The Polacy do broni poster is an eloquent artistic artifact of those distant and controversial events.

 

The creative charge received by the poster artists of Uzbekistan during the war years continued to operate in the second half of the 40s of the XX century, when the main attention of the state switched to economic issues. A typical example of a poster of that time is the work of the same Boris Zhukov "Farhad Hydroelectric Power Station Builds a Hero-People" (1947).

 

The special value of the exhibition is given by the fact that it introduces us not to copies, but to the originals of small-circulation editions, which, due to their purpose, are usually poorly preserved. Therefore, the exposition conveys to the viewer the living breath of the era, which is especially important in our computer, virtual age.

 

Exhibition of Central Asian Posters 20-40s XX century, on the other hand, is designed to respond to the persistent interest that has arisen in recent years (especially in the West) in the so-called. "Socialist realism". It is the poster that is a vivid representative of this trend in art, and the exhibits of the exhibition open before us the still little-studied and half-forgotten works of outstanding artists of Uzbekistan and neighboring republics.

 

 

Boris Golender