Qiz Qalasi Art Gallery

Q Gallery is one of Azerbaijan Art Galleries located in the heart of Baku, in Icheri Sheher. It is also one of the most prominent Baku Art Galleries noted for the reach collection of paintings and sculptures.Established in 1999 QGallery is proud to present fine local art in one of the most beautiful Baku Art Gallery in the world. We aim to be a place of experience and inspiration, through our collection, exhibitions, projects and research. Admission to the QGallery is free, as are our permanent galleries and most exhibitions and events. Despite of the numerous Baku Galleries nowadays popular among the local inhabitants and tourists as well, QGallery keeps its own place among the top ones.

History of Qiz Qalasi Gallery

The Qiz Qalasi Gallery was founded on 19 of March, 1999. People’s artist of Azerbaijan, professor Salkhab Mammadov opened the gallery in the premises which he had used as a workshop for many years and which located in the very center of Baku, at the foot of the Maiden Tower. The gallery is headed by his son, honorary art figure Emin Mammadov.Initially, the aim of opening the gallery was Salkhab Mammadov’s strife to support his colleagues in the hard post-Soviet years. By opening one of the first private galleries in Azerbaijan, Salkhab Mammadov practically gave an opportunity for artistic experiments of many currently famous and the then beginner talented artists, sculptors and photographers. “Few, except for the Ministry of Culture and Artists’ Union were dealing with popularization of Azerbaijani art at that time”, Mammadov said. “The artists worked in isolation, rarely exhibiting while some were in need of material aid. In short, our artists were left face-to-face with their problems”.

In the years of its activity, the Qiz Qalasi gallery turned into a real center of art becoming an inseparable part of the country’s cultural life. The gallery carries a number of important functions including representative, collective, commercial and expert ones. Enlightenment, the strife to familiarize the viewers with the fine arts of Azerbaijan of different periods are the priority direction of its activity. Along with the paintings of classics and nonconformists of the Soviet epoch, the gallery exhibits the actual art represented by the works of a definite group of artists.Curator projects on development of actual art of Azerbaijan, as well as preparation of paintings by the artists with whom the gallery has been cooperating for many years constitute the strategic direction in the activity of the gallery. Among these artists are Altai Sadiqzadeh, Museib Amirov, Ali Ibadullayev, Eliyar Alimirzoyev, Shamo Abasov.

By supporting actual directions of contemporary art and identifying a vector of its development, the gallery seeks to familiarize the viewers with the art of our country, develop an artistic taste and form the art market of the contemporary art of Azerbaijan, which is important for the activity of the gallery.The Berlin-Baku gallery opened in Berlin on the initiative of Emin Mammadov and Salkhab Mammadov in 2007. The main goal of the gallery is to familiarize the German viewers with the art, culture and history of Azerbaijan. Over 50 Azerbaijani artists of different generations from classics to beginner painters and students have exhibited throughout the years of the gallery functioning.

Organization of joint exhibition featuring the creative art of both Azerbaijani and European masters forms an important direction in the activity of the gallery. The works by artists from Germany, Japan, France, Poland, Mongolia, Uzbekistan, Georgia and many other countries are demonstrated at the gallery.Today both galleries play an important role in the artistic and cultural life of the society and are the centers of culture which broadly feature the art of the present-day Azerbaijan.