Peonies

Baki Idrisovich Urmanche was a People's Artist of the RSFSR and the TASSR, a Meritorious Artist of the Kazakh SSR, and a laureate of the Gabdulla Tukay Prize. He was a pioneer of professional Tatar art, becoming the first Tatar artist to receive higher education at a Soviet art institution (VKhUTEMAS, under A. Golubkina and A. Shevchenko). In 1929, he was repressed and spent five years in the Solovki prison camp. From 1941, he worked in Alma-Ata, creating a series of portraits of Kazakh cultural figures. In 1958, he returned to Kazan, where he actively engaged in sculpture and painting. He created the Gabdulla Tukay memorial complex in the village of Kyrlay. A museum dedicated to the artist and a monument in his honor were established in Kazan.