Sometimes it's easier to read an artist's biography through their paintings than through archival documents. Some canvases evoke childhood memories, others depict the faces of contemporaries, and still others depict landscapes of his native land and the signs of the times. This was precisely the creative world of Tursyn Abuov—painter, sculptor, member of the Union of Artists of Kazakhstan, and Honored Artist of the country. Akmaral Zholanova, an archivist at the Collections Department of the National Central Museum of the Republic of Kazakhstan, spoke to Qazaq Culture about his legacy.
The future artist was born in 1936 in the village of Kyzyl Tu-3 in the Ili district of the Almaty region. His childhood coincided with the difficult war years. After his father left for the front, Tursyn began helping his mother and working alongside adults at an early age. However, alongside the harsh everyday life, there always existed another world—one of patterns, color, and handicrafts. His mother, Kapysh, was a renowned craftswoman in the village and decorated alasha and tekemets with ornaments.
"He dreamed of becoming an artist from the age of five. "His mother had a profound influence on him. Observing her work, how patterns were born and compositions took shape, Tursyn became increasingly convinced that he wanted to dedicate his life to art," says Akmaral Zholanova.

The path to professional education was not easy. Abuov spent three years trying to enroll in an art school and only after several attempts succeeded. There, he studied with Aisha Galimbayeva, Mukhit Kalimov, and other masters of the Kazakh art school. From the mid-1960s, his works began appearing in national and international exhibitions, and were later presented in Russia, Central Asia, Europe, and Asia. Today, the artist's works are held in the National Central Museum, the State Archives, the Abylkhan Kasteyev National Museum of Arts, and in museum and private collections abroad.
War memory occupies a special place in his work. Abuov painted Aliya Moldagulova, two-time Hero of the Soviet Union Talgat Begeldinov, and his first teacher, Baimukhamet Shyntemirov, who served at the front. Talgat Begeldinov's portrait is now housed in the Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow. But the artist was no less interested in people whose names were not included in history books. In his paintings of harvesting, working in the fields, and the difficult war and post-war years, the working man becomes the protagonist. These scenes were particularly close to him—he knew hard work from childhood, not from stories.
Another major theme for Abuov is the national culture and everyday life of the Kazakh people. The National Central Museum's collection includes his "Still Life," portraits of Shakarim Kudayberdiuly and Dina Nurpeisova, the composition "Abai Uldarymen," as well as "Koloneshіler," "Egіndіk Basyndaғy Tүskі As," "Zhaylauda," "Tүye Sauu," and other works. Through everyday objects, human faces, clothing, and familiar scenes, the artist depicted tradition as a living part of modernity, rather than as a decorative image of the past.

Since the 1980s, Abuov increasingly turned to large-scale compositions, where the flow of time itself became central. The most striking example is the painting "Omіr – Ozen" (Life – River). This is a unique pictorial autobiography: the artist consistently depicted his own journey, beginning at the age of five, bringing together events, people, and memories from across the years in a single space. He worked on the canvas for ten years, and the painting itself was later included in the Kazakhstan Book of Records.
The artist's interests were not limited to painting. He dabbled in sculpture and landscape design, carving figures from wood, transforming ordinary trunks and snags into artistic images. In 1998, Tursyn Abuov was awarded the title of Honored Worker of Kazakhstan.
To mark the artist's 90th birthday, the National Central Museum presented the exhibition "Kazakh Artists of Kazakhstan," bringing together works from the museum's collection and a private collection. The exhibition once again demonstrated the breadth of Abuov's artistic world—from historical portraits to scenes of everyday life.
But perhaps the most important aspect of his legacy is not the individual genres or even the number of works. Tursyn Abuov's paintings form a coherent narrative about a man who lived through several eras with his country and preserved them in color. War and peace, field and studio, great personalities and simple workers, national traditions and personal memories—all became part of a single artistic chronicle. For Abuov, painting was not only a profession but also a way to preserve time.