National artist wins Olympic Artistic Award

By Azernews

By Laman Ismayilova

Azerbaijani artist Margarita Karimova-Sokolova has been awarded with Olympic Artistic Award 2021.

Olympic Artistic Award rewards artists, sculptors, photographers, graphic designers, video artists. The prize is designed to  bring creative competition back to the Olympics.

Each honored artist receives a plaque with his name, medal and parchment. In addition, the artist`s paintings will be published in the Art Olympic Prize catalog and in the Art International Contemporary Magazine.

Margarita Karimova-Sokolova was born in Baku. Her great-grandfather was a famous Russian artist Ivan Ivanovich Sokolov. She studied at the art and graphic faculty of the Kuban University and the Academy of Arts named after Repin (St. Petersburg).

She is a Member of Azerbaijan Union of Artists and the USSR (since 1969). She is also a member of UNESCO International Federation of Artists, member of the International Art Fund of the Russian Academy of Arts, Vice-President of the International Foundation for Aesthetic Development, member of the International Association of Artists.

Since 1965, Margarita has participated in exhibitions of Soviet and Azerbaijani artists in various cities of the USSR, Algeria, Germany, U.S., France, Cuba, Austria, Poland, and Bulgaria.

In 1994-1995, she lived and worked in the U.S. (Philadelphia, New York, Chicago). Since 1995, she has been living in the city of Cologne (Germany). Her exhibitions are held with great success in many countries. 

History behind Olympic Artistic Award

The authors of the award are Italians Francesco Saverio Russo and Salvatore Russo. Not everyone knows that only the best sports achievements were not always awarded at the Olympic Games.

From 1912 to 1952, during the Olympic Games, a parallel competition of contemporary art was held, divided into five categories: painting, sculpture, architecture, literature and music. This contest for artists was established by Baron de Coubertin back in 1906.

The competition  was attended by such legendary figures as Jean Rene Gauguin, son of Paul Gauguin, who received a bronze medal for sculpture at the Olympic Games in 1924.

Even such a famous historian art, like Giulio Carlo Argan, participated in the selection of national champions in the jury of the 1948 London Olympics. In 1924, Russian composer Igor Stravinsky presented the musicians with medals at Paris Olympics.