Alvina Shpady

Alvina Andreevna Shpady (January 31, 1935 – June 22, 2019; ) was an artist and art restorer in Uzbekistan. As a longtime restorer at the Nukus Museum of Art, she worked to preserve the museum's holdings as well as to promote traditional Karakalpak textile techniques.

Biography Alvina Shpady was born in 1935 in Baýramaly, the capital of Turkmenistan's Mary Region. Her family were Volga Germans who had been resettled further east in the Soviet Union.

Shpady studied at the Shota Rustaveli Turkmen State Art School in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat, graduating in 1957. She would spend the bulk of her career at the Nukus Museum, partnering closely with Savitsky and working to restore paintings as well as textiles and other art objects.

Shpady also produced her own artistic work, including paintings as well as traditional textiles such as suzani. As an artist, she was particularly interested in monumentalism, as well as affectionate depictions of Karakalpakstan. While the accusation was viewed by her colleagues as ill founded, display of the painting in other museums was restricted until May 2019, when the charges were dropped entirely. She was recognized as an Honored Cultural Worker of the Republic of Karakalpakstan. She died in June 2019, at the age of 84. The following year, the Nukus Museum organized an exhibit, "Another Facet of Talent," in honor of what would have been her 85th birthday.