Tashpulat Arslankulov

Tashpulat Arslankulov was born in Tashkent in 1882 into a family of ganch (carved plaster) masters, in which the craft passed from father to son. He learned carving from his father and began practising it as a small child; by the age of 12 or 13 he was already working with his father on important commissions.

Among the demanding techniques of ganch carving he favoured “choka-pardoz”, in which the edges of a raised pattern are cut away with two slanting strokes towards the centre, leaving a groove that plays with light and shadow. His work more often shows the plant ornament known as “islimi”, sometimes combined with the geometric “girikh”, and he drew the patterns for his carving himself.

He took part in decorating many buildings in Tashkent, among them the Polovtsev house, built in a European style (now the Museum of Applied Arts of Uzbekistan), the Hamza Uzbek Drama Theatre, the Muqimi Music and Drama Theatre, the meeting hall of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Uzbek SSR and the building of the regional executive committee.

His largest work was the decoration of the Tashkent Hall in the Alisher Navoi Opera and Ballet Theatre (opened in 1947), where, drawing on the folk traditions of decorating an Uzbek home, he covered the walls with a single ornamental composition. He was named People’s Artist of the Uzbek SSR in 1944, and in 1948 he received a Stalin Prize of the first degree, together with Alexey Shchusev and other masters, for the theatre building.

From 1952 he taught at the Benkov Republican Art College. On 18 March 1959 he was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour. Arslankulov died in Tashkent in 1962; his works are held in museums in Moscow, St Petersburg and other cities. In 1982 the Union of Architects of Uzbekistan widely marked the centenary of his birth.