Artist of the week: Nicholas Karahan
ARTinvestment.RU   16 марта 2020

History, pricing and marketing indicators of Nicholas G. Karahan – one of the main representatives of the Eastern direction of Russian avant-garde and the brightest artists of Uzbekistan

Years of life: 1900-1970

Period: modernism

Fields: painting, graphics

In October 2019 in the Museum of Oriental art in Moscow has opened the first in Russia personal exhibition of the outstanding master of the Uzbek school of painting and one of the creators of the Russian avant-garde Nikolai G. Karahan. This large-scale (hundreds of works) exhibition was timed to 120-летнему the anniversary of the birth of the artist. The main events dedicated to this date will be held this year in his homeland, in Uzbekistan.

Nikolai G. Karahan was born on 5 November (according to other sources – 20 or 30 may) 1900 in a peasant family in the village Nakhichevanik in Nagorno Karabakh, however, lived there long. At the age of seven, the future artist and his family moved to Tashkent, where he began his education. After graduating from high school in 1917 Karahan for his success in drawing was selected to study in the Studio of the Russian painter, landscape painter, and scholar of the Imperial Academy of arts Ivan Kazakov. In 1919, under the influence of a teacher he continued his education in the just open the Turkestan regional art school where his teachers, in addition to Kazakov, was Alex Yusupov and Sergei Yudin.

In 1920, Karakhan was drafted into the Red army, where he served until 1924. During his service he continued his studies in painting, becoming an artist of agitation propaganda.

After demobilization, he returned to Tashkent, where he engaged in teaching: from 1925 to 1934 as a teacher of drawing in the Turkmen teachers College, and from 1934 to 1941 as a teacher of painting in the Tashkent art College.

1920-е years and formed a personal pictorial style of the artist. Acquainted during his studies with the ideas of modernism, he at any-то time was influenced, to some extent, and post-impressionism, and the painting by Robert Falk and Alexander Volkov. The latter played a major role in the formation of the creative manner of the artist. Once in 1931 in the so-called "brigade Volkov", he, like other members of this Association (the Ural of Tansykbaev, Mr Podkovyrov, Pavel Shchegolev and Bahram Hamdami), became interested in creating art at the crossroads of Eastern and European graphic manner, creating bright, imaginative and with a touch of "Frescobaldi" dimensional composition, gravitating toward monumentality.

Later this hobby has transformed into a kind of brushwork the artist, different decorative on the verge of graphic quality, a kind of laconic composition, colorful palette and a unique feeling of lightness infused sun light space characteristic of numerous landscape works.

Enlisting in the early 1930-х years to the Union of artists of Uzbekistan, Kara soon entered his organizing Committee, and in 1939 participated in the design of the frescoes of the USSR pavilion at the world exhibition in new-Йорке.

In the years of the great Patriotic war Nikolay Karakhanleft teaching and concentrated on painting. In 1941-1945 years he actively participated in the creation of promotional materials, which formed the streets of Tashkent, and after the war created a series made in the spirit of socialist realism paintings "Uzbekistan during the great Patriotic war."

after the war, the artist received wide recognition: in 1950-х years he became Chairman of the Art Fund of Uzbekistan and a member of the Board Vladimir Popov of the USSR, and in 1960 he received the title of people's artist of Uzbekistan.

he Died in the year of his seventieth birthday, June 18, 1970, while working on the painting "the Road home".

Today the artist's works can be divided into two stages, early, avant-garde or the pre-war period and Mature post-war. Despite the fact that during the life of Karakhan's most valuable was his post-war work, modern professionals and the market value and his early work. Nowhere is this fact show auction records of works of Karakhan. The most expensive work of an artist sold at public auction is a realistic composition "Komsomol on construction of the reservoir", bought at auction MacDougall's in 2012 for £113 thousand ($181 thousand). Record for works of the earlier period are $55 thousand, given in 2016 for the work "educational program" 1920-х years.

Marketing and financial indicators

for the life of Nikolai Karahan participated in numerous Republican and all-Union exhibitions in the country. In 1939 he designed the frescoes on the pavilion of the USSR at the world exhibition "World of tomorrow" in new-Йорке. The exhibition was visited by about 44 million people. The first retrospective exhibition of the artist took place 11 years after his death, in 1981, in Tashkent. In the recent history of the work of Nikolai Karahan participated in the two resonant exhibitions: group "Treasures of Nukus. From the collection of the State Museum of arts of the Republic of Karakalpakstan" in the Pushkin Museum. A. S. Pushkin in Moscow (2017) and the first solo exhibition in Russia at the Museum of East (2019).

his Works are in many Museum collections, including the State Tretyakov gallery, State Museum of arts of Uzbekistan in Tashkent. The most significant collection of works by Nikolai Karakhan has State art Museum im. I. V. Savitsky in Nukus (862 paintings and graphics).

According to the database ARTinvestment.RU by the time of publication, the artist has 91 auctionwe sale, including 2 re-sale. The average price work is $9.6 thousand, the Total capitalization in the public market – $365 thousand Has a negative balance of sold and unsold works: 38 of 53 (42% of all trading completed the sale).

table 1. Sale during the auction

table 2. Sales by country the auction

table 3. Re-sale

the compound annual growth rate of -8,5%. Unfortunately, the two re-sale can not objectively evaluate the investment attractiveness of the artist due to lack of information. Note that the work of Nikolai Karakhan includes several artistic movements, involving different groups of collectors, avant-garde and social realism: for the works of both currents are typical long-term holding periods. Positive trend showing increase in the number of successful sales in the period 2016-2020 (table 1), which greatly contributed to the loud Moscow exhibitions museums the first magnitude. Given the growing interest of the global art-рынка to regional art, as well as the overall high level of artists from the Central Asian countries of the XX century, it is possible that in the next decade this market will gain international recognition.

On the current 321-м AI Auction exhibited the work of Nikolai Karakhan "Chaihona" in 1923

Maria Kuznetsova, AI
Denis Belkevich, AI

Sources:
https://artinvestment.ru/auctions/30410/biography.html
https://www.orientmuseum.ru/events/2019/karahan/index.php
http://nukus.open-museum.net/author/profile/2