Saitanda, Semipalatinsk province 1924-1986 Almaty, Kazakhstan

(1924, Saitandy – 1986, Almaty) A prominent Kazakh cultural figure, Nagymbek Nurmukhamedov was active both as an artist and an art historian. He authored books like The Art of Kazakhstan (1970) and Graphics of the Kazakh SSR (1978). A veteran of World War II and a graduate of the Ilya Repin Leningrad Institute of Arts, he masterfully bridged socialist realism with explorations of Kazakh identity through painting and drawing. His art often captured everyday life and national history, with a deep sensitivity to cultural memory and ethnographic detail. An active participant in international exhibitions from Brazil to Japan, he brought Kazakh visual narratives into global circulation. His travels, in turn, inspired his canvases back home with scenes and characters from afar. In Qonaqtar, his large-scale painting of women weaving a carpet is shown. Their depiction at work affirms the Soviet ideals of labour, and different ethnicities symbolise the idea of friendship between nations – a concept popularised at the time and an underlying thread of the exhibition.