Kazakhstani painter, a member of Semipalatinsk Jewish community Irina Verhgradskaya, exhibited her works at Semipalatinsk Hesed. To some extend Irina is well-known in the Republic and beyond its boarders. Her works - small figures of famous people - are in private collections of Kazakhstan, Russia, USA, Great Britain, Germany and Japan.

  Besides this, "habitants" of Irina’s small world "live" even in a museum of Kazakhstani president. In 2001, during the 8th of March holiday celebration in Astana, to which Irina Verhgradskaya was invited among other women from different parts of the country, Nursultan Nazarbaev personally presented her with a letter of gratitude.

    - Here is Boyarskiy, in a hat!

    - And this is Charlie Chaplin, can you see?

    - And this is Yakubovitch! - exclaimed children, looking at Irina’s works, exhibited in Hesed. The table, on which were put celebrities, 10-15 cm in height, was just besieged with kids. The single thing left for adults was just to wait for a moment when they will be allowed to look at figures.

  The collection of dolls, hand-made by Irina Verhgradskaya contains more than one thousand numbers. Among them are fairy and bible characters, historical figures: from Egyptian Pharaohs to Gorbatchev and Eltsin. Workers of culture and art of different times and nations also deserved the artist’s attention. What’s more, the author does her best not only to fix the appearance. Looking at dresses of those dolls, one can learn the history of the cloth - its details are made so real. Let it be literary characters of classical works or our contemporaries, anyway their clothes is a separate subject for discussion.

  Of course, this is not her first personal exhibition. "A small world" of Irina Verhgradskaya was exhibited in museums of different cities of Kazakhstan and Russia. In future our Hesed plans to meet again with that gifted artist and to cooperate with her.

Lubov Barohovskaya