Kyzyl-Orda region, Kazakhstan 1926-2002 Almaty, Kazakhstan

(1923, Batyr – 2002, Almaty) Kazakh artist Sakhi Romanov worked across painting, drawing and film, enhancing his realist style with cinematic rhythm and movement. Orphaned young and employed at an arms factory during WWII, he remained committed to art. Romanov studied at the Moscow Secondary Art School, the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute of Arts and later at the All-Russian State Institute of Cinematography (VGIK), returning to Kazakhstan in the 1950s. His career began at Kazakhfilm, the country’s main state film studio, as a production and costume designer. This role influenced his visual art, where he moved fluidly between landscapes, portraits and scenes of everyday life, often drawing on Kazakh visual traditions. A long-standing collaboration with pioneering film director Shaken Aimanov furthered that engagement. Throughout the 1960s–80s, Romanov travelled widely across Kazakhstan for film work, sketching and painting along the way. For example, the vast landscapes of Bayanaul left a lasting impression. His drawing On a Visit reflects that experience, resembling a film still as it captures a family journey across the steppe with warmth, intimacy and the spirit of awaited communal celebration.