Theodore Hertzen

Theodore Hertzen was born in 1935 in the village of Ak Dobo in Leninopole, (currently known as Bakai Ata) of Talas oblast, where there is a small museum dedicated to his life and work.

He was educated at both the Bishkek and Moscow Institutes of Art and he has been granted many awards such as the titles of Monumental Draughtsman, Kyrgyz National Painter and Kyrgyz National Art Craftsman. He has exhibited in several exhibitions and galleries — in Kyrgyzstan, the former Soviet Union and internationally.

He works in a variety of media. As well as painting in oils, he has created a series of pastel landscapes dedicated to the nature found in the Talas valley.

He pioneered monumental paintings for industrial interiors and created works in mosaic (examples are found throughout the country, for example in social clubs in both Kemin and Kochkor, the «Kirov» reservoir, the Theatre in Osh and until recently in the Ai Peri building in Bishkek).

It is as a book illustrator that he is most famous. He created a series of over 200 linocuts based on the «Manas» epic which took over ten years to complete — and examples can be seen in the Fine Arts Museum in Bishkek and a collection of them have been published separately in book form — His paintings have also been used by many authors, including Chinghiz Aitmatov, to illustrate their works.