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He came from the autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabah, where he was born in 1900. In 1917, at the end of the regular studies, Karahan entered the atelier of master Kazakov and improved his artistic curriculum in the following year, when he was admitted to Institute of Art in Tashkent. At the end of 1920, Karahan left school to enter the Red Army. He was going to be discharged only in 1924. His title as an artist sees him in these years involved in the Army for social aims. The official propaganda, aware of the fact that image was a very important means of communication and promotion because of the higher intensity of visual impact, and also because of illiteracy among common people, had, as a matter of facts, decided to employ the contribution of artists. It was in this respect that Karahan spent his time creating murals and wall-posters and decorating the buildings of the army and rural circles. In 1925, he decided to go back to Tashkent, where from 1926, he worked as an artist - educator at the Institute of Pedagogy. In the meanwhile, he had started teaching drawing at the technical school of Turkmenistan, where he obtained the teaching post for painting at the Institute of Art in Tashkent, that he kept until 1941.
During those years the interest Karahan showed for his country was put into practise also in his active participation to the Soviet Union of Artists of Uzbekistan - founded in the early 30s and aimed to the preparation of the first artistic exhibitions in the republic.
Since ever Karahan had been devoted to art, his main activity, but from 1941 he completely left teaching to give himself completely to painting. He took part to all republican shows organised in those years, and to many other federal exhibitions, while his prestige and fame grew. His position became more and more important: he was not only a member of the Union of Artists, but he was also appointed to President of the Artistic Found of Uzbekistan and member of the management of the Artistic Found of USSR.
On June 1960 the artist was awarded by the Supreme Soviet of the Republic of Uzbekistan, with the title of «Artist of the People»: the highest recognition of that period in Soviet Union reserved only to the best representatives of the world of art. He died in 1970.
Nowadays his works are exhibited in the most important museums of ex USSR as Tetriacow Gallery and the Oriental Culture Museum of Moscow, the Russian Museum of St. Petersburg, the Figurative Arts Museum of Tashkent, the National Art Museum of Nukus and the Artistic Museum of Samarcanda. There are many of his paintings edited in the most important books of history of soviet art.
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