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| New director Tigran Mkrtychev |
Leading the museum for 34 years, Dr Babanazarova was responsible for the museum gaining world-wide recognition as a unique collection of avant-garde Soviet art, Karakalpak jewellery and textiles, and priceless pieces from the Sergei Tolstov archaeological expeditions, conducted in Khorezm from 1937.
Since Dr Babanazarova's departure a few years ago, the museum has been in flux. Several directors pulled it back to "regional museum" status rather than the international status that Dr Babanazarova had built.
Fears abounded about the collection. At one stage Alexander Shevchenko 's 1914 painting "Woman with Buckets" was seriously damaged in 2018 by a recently and badly installed sprinkler system.
In 2019 an international competition was held for the post of director. The very positive news is that Dr Tigran Mkrtychev takes up the directorship on 2 January 2021.
Tigran Konstantinovich Mkrtychev is a Soviet and Russian archaeologist and art historian, currently working as the director of the Roerich Museum, a branch of the State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow.
He was born in Kalinin and lived in Uzbekistan for 10 years. Firstly as a student in the Department of Archeology of Central Asia, Tashkent State University, Later he participated in expeditions with the famous archaeologist Galina Pugachenkova, who devoted her life to Central Asian civilizations.
Dr Mkrtychev continued archaeological work in the post-Soviet period in Central Asia, Tuva and China. He has written extensively on Central Asian Buddhist art as well as avante garde art of the region.
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| The brilliant Marinika Babanazarova |
Desert of Forbidden Art screens at Venice Biennale
Sotheby's London Exhibition: Contemporary Art from Central Asia & the Caucasus
Central Asia in Art: From Soviet Orientalism to the New Republics
