Hayat Abdullayeva

Hayat Abdullayeva (14 October 1912, Derbent - 21 April 2006, Baku) was an Azerbaijani sculptor, and honoured art worker.

Biography Hayat Hamdulla qizi Abdullayeva was born on 14 October 1912 in the city of Derbent. She was the daughter of the famous fish merchant Hamdulla Abdullayev. After the execution of her father, she was exiled with her mother to Kazakhstan.

In 1942, she entered the evacuated Repin Institute of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture (now Repin Institute of Arts), from Leningrad to Samarkand. In those years, she created the sculptures "Tutu khanim" and "Hasan bey Zardabi". She became the first Azerbaijani woman in the field of easel sculpture. After completing her studies, she arrived to Baku, where she was a teacher at the Art School named after Azim Azimzada. She learned in the workshop of artist Petr Sabsay.

Creation Abdullayeva worked in the decorative and easel sculpture field. The lyrical theme prevailed in Abdullayevas small sculptures. If in such compositions as "Motherhood" and "Lullaby", the sculptor sings maternal love, then she dedicates her two-figure sculpture to the enamoured. The poetic images of a guy and a girl made of wood, contemplating the world of love, dreams, and desires, convey a feeling of tenderness.

Among the famous works of the author, one can note the sculpture "Hajar" (1959), the colourful decorative figures reflecting the characters from Nizamis poem "Seven Beauties"(1959). Sometimes this composition, being represented by porcelain figurines, is called the “Seven Beauties and Bahram Shah”. Despite the diverse images of the girls, that differ in movements and clothes, the author managed to create a whole composition. The artistic images of the poet Nizami Ganjavi, famous in the East, performed by Abdullayeva, received a new and original interpretation. The theme, to which the author turned, itself forces the sculptor to emphasize the brilliance and exoticism of this image. At the same time, the professional flair, the knowledge of the technological qualities of the porcelain, the emanating from the nature and textured capabilities of the material, gave an impetus to the emergence of this decorative composition. The figures attract not only by their plasticity, but also by their logical completeness from the point of view of the typical elements of expressions.

In 1964, she was awarded the title of the Honored Art Worker.

Abdullayeva died on 21 April 2006 in Baku.

Heritage In 2014, the Nizami Cinema Centre in Baku hosted the premiere of a documentary film by the Azerbaijani director Yaver Rzayev "The Light of My Eyes and the Amazing Life of a Sculptor", dedicated to the 100th anniversary of H. Abdullayeva.