1980 THE USSR. Fibreboard, oil Width: 80 cm Height: 105 cm
Description Grigory Ulko was born on April 5, 1925 in the village of Ekaterinovka, Altai Territory. In the spring of 1943, at the height of World War II, Grigory Ulko was drafted into the army. Subsequently, he wrote: “it was there, at the front, that my decision was finally strengthened: if I stay alive, I will become an artist.” In 1946, Ulko left his job at the factory and went to Samarkand, where he immediately entered the second year of the Samarkand Art School. One of his teachers was the famous Soviet painter, Honored Artist of the Uzbek SSR - Pavel Petrovich Benkov. Ulko completed his studies in Tashkent, where the School was transferred in 1949, and in 1952 he moved to Kharkov, where he studied at the painting department of the Kharkov Art Institute.
He is one of the most famous representatives of the modern Samarkand school of art. Known as the author of the coat of arms of Samarkand and a series of works dedicated to the tragedy of the Aral Sea and the history of Uzbekistan. He was a member of the Union of Artists of the USSR and an Honored Artist of Uzbekistan. In 2017, a personal exhibition of works “Samarkand by Grigory Ulko” opened at the Academy of Arts of Uzbekistan.
The artist’s works are presented not only in museums and galleries of Uzbekistan, but also in other countries of the post-Soviet space and in private collections.