OREANDA-NEWS. In winter of 2007 Kurama Art Gallery together with AsiaUniversalBank realized a project “Chuikov and His Epoch”: 8 paintings of one of the most famous painters of Kyrgyzstan were restored, an art exhibition of the artists of Stalin’s period in Kyrgyz painting (1934-1953) and a conference on the issues of the cultural heritage preservation took place within the framework of the project. Publishing of the book “Chuikov and his epoch” became a logical completion of the project, reported the press-centre of AsiaUniversalBank.

“A lot of things were written about Semyon Chuikov. That is why the authors of the project didn’t make it their aim to publish one more academic publication or dispute something. But it’s high time to bring together some well-known notes that were not expressed or published before because of ideological considerations”, said Gamal Bokonbayev, the publication’s editor-in-chief.

Some canonical information followed by the author’s comments is presented in the book. The book is graphically illustrated with the slides of S. Chuikov’s paintings from the reserves of the National museum after G. Aitiyev, private collections and the Tretyakov gallery. For the first time S. Chuikov’s pencil drawings are published in their full extent.

Some unique family photos given by relatives are placed in the book; they are also published for the first time. The authors of the project found an opportunity to show archive documents of the Plenary Sessions of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), of the Sittings of Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic Artists Union and the extracts from Chuikov’s book “Notes of an artist”. The book contains the artist’s personal correspondence with his friend Olga Potapova, arts critic, devoted to her cause to her dying day. The main goal of the authors of the project is to popularize Chuikov’s works and the country he devoted his creative work to - Kyrgyzstan!

Semyon Afanasyevich Chuikov- People’s artist of the USSR, the creator of a painting series “Kyrgyz collective farm suite”, “In our Kyrgyzstan”. He is one of the most active participants of the national painting school formation process in Kyrgyzstan.