Magomed-Ali Aliyev

Magomed-Ali Aliyev was born on 6 November 1949 in the village of Chitur in the Lak district of the Dagestan ASSR. As a child he began to draw in the studio of the Dagestani artist M. Yunusilau. In 1976 he graduated from the Dagestan Art School.

After his studies he moved with his wife to Navoi in Uzbekistan. He began his creative work by running the studio of the Farhod House of Culture, where he taught children modelling, metal chasing and wood carving. Later he also headed the Navoi regional branch of the artists’ association.

Aliyev became known as a sculptor. In Uzbekistan he made statues and busts of Amir Temur (more than twenty different versions), Alisher Navoi, Ibn Sina and Sabir Rahimov, which stand in city streets, public buildings and military units. His work has been shown at exhibitions of the Union of Artists of Uzbekistan and at international exhibitions in the United States, Canada, Mexico and Sweden, and some pieces are held by the Museum of Applied Arts of Uzbekistan.

In his native Dagestan he won several competitions and made monuments to Partu Patimat, the heroine of the Lak epic, at Kumukh (2004), to Abdurakhman Daniyalov (2008), and, in Makhachkala, to Rasul Gamzatov (2010) and Amet-Khan Sultan. Another monument to Amet-Khan Sultan, from 2010, stands in Yaroslavl.

He is a member of the Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan and has received the academy’s silver medal (1999) and the Order of Dostlik (2001). In Dagestan he was named Honoured (2005) and People’s (2014) Artist of the republic.