Van Gogh in miniature
42-year-old top manager from Ufa Salavat Fidai quit a good job to paint. Copies of paintings on matchboxes and pumpkin seeds immediately sold out to collectors from the US and Europe.
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1. Salavat Fidai began to draw as a child. He graduated from art school, but failed the art graph exams. “Friends called - come with us to the law faculty. I went. It was very fashionable back then,” he says.
Gradually, he rose to the head of a division in a commercial firm, things were going well. Everything changed the case. A childhood friend once asked if he continues to draw?
“I came home, being in some kind of confusion,” recalls Salavat. - He took out stale brushes and painted a picture. The children saw and were very surprised: “Dad, you draw so well! But we didn’t know…” And I felt that here it is, the moment of truth. Either now or never. In general, he quit his job, bought canvases and began to paint.
The paintings sold pretty well, but Salavat gained fame when he took up miniatures.
2. “It all started with a box of matches. I remembered how we used to collect them, because they came out with interesting colorful images. And now - gray, boring, one advertisement. I drew a copy of the famous portrait of Van Gogh with his ear cut off on the box,” he says.
3. Then Fidai made a copy of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" on a pumpkin seed. It was purchased by a museum dedicated to the artist's work.
4. “Do I regret changing everything? Absolutely not. Now I’m happy,” says the former lawyer.
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