An opportunity to visit the famous Savitsky Museum of Arts became a real blessing for him. It was that visit that inspired the researcher to begin collecting things.
Adam Albion made quite a few important personal discoveries at the museum. What truly impressed him was how Igor Savitsky (1915 – 1984), the museum’s founder and first director, who was engaged in collecting equally works by Soviet dissident artists accused of formalist approaches and pieces of traditional Karakalpak arts, had an eye for valuable things, which became even more valuable years later. The perfect intuition and erudition of Savitsky, who is rightly referred to as “a miracle worker from Nukus,” allowed him to make prophetical judgements.
The motifs on all embroidered items in the collection can be divided into several categories: geometric (including cosmogonic symbols), zoomorphic, vegetal, object and anthropomorphic. Closely related to the most ancient strata of artistic heritage, the Karakalpak ornament behaves like a living organism that, influenced by Islamic aesthetics alongside other factors, has evolved in the course of time. This is a very old symbolic system bearing the knowledge and experience of many generations and expressing their spiritual commonality, a coded language understandable to the bearers of this culture. The ornamentation is filled with emotion, it inculcates and develops artistic taste in people, and beautifies their everyday life.
You can learn more about the topic in the book-album "The Cultural legacy of Uzbekistan in private collections of the USA and Canada" (volume XXXI) in the series "Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan in the World Collections".
The main sponsor of the project is the oilfield services company Eriell-Group.
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