White Gold. Cotton in the Art of the Soviet East

The new exhibition at the State Museum of Oriental Art is dedicated to a grand-scale project for the development of domestic cotton farming and its reflection in painting, graphic arts, posters, and the decoration of everyday objects.
During the Soviet era, cotton became a symbol of prosperity not only for cotton-growing regions such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan but for the entire country. As such, its image was widely employed by visual propaganda tools.
The exhibition kicks off with a compact section designed to acquaint visitors with the history of cotton in Central Asia. It features antique garments, samples of traditional textiles, and wooden stamps used for printing patterns on handcrafted cotton fabrics.
The main section of the exhibition comprises paintings by renowned masters of Soviet visual art, including P. Benkov, A. Volkov, A. Nikolaev, M. Kurzin, O. Sokolova, V. Boborykin, S. Beglyarov, Sh. Mangasarov, and other artists.
Part of the exhibition space is dedicated to posters created from the 1930s to the 1970s. Alongside mass-printed works, it also features original sketches by A. Nikolaev, O. Sokolova, and S. Beglyarov – renowned artists who left their mark on the history of Central Asian painting.
One hall showcases a variety of cotton-themed objects: decorative panels, ceramic plates, embroidered covers, a gold-embroidered Bukhara skullcap, and a unique Turkmen ornament, all demonstrating how cotton was transformed into a sacred Soviet symbol.
The exhibition concludes with several contemporary robes, created by Tashkent designer Dilyara Kaipova. The fabric for these robes was hand-woven by masters from Margilan (a textile center in the Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan) using the traditional ikat technique based on Kaipova's original designs.