Geysar Kashiyeva

Geysar Seyfulla qizi Kashiyeva was an Azerbaijani painter. She is considered the first professional female painter in Azerbaijani history.

She was born in Tiflis to a family of an ethnic Azeri officer of the Russian Imperial Army. In 19071908 she took a course in professional painting at the Caucasus Artistic Society, where she was taught by Oscar Schmerling . Her first works were painted in watercolour, pencil, ink, or coal. Those include Goncharovs Portrait , A Muslim Intellectual , Lakeshore , Baba Yaga , etc. She also designed playbill and posters while working at the Muslim Womens Caucasian Benevolent Society. In 1916 she married Colonel Shirin bey Kasamanski, who was undergoing medical treatment in Tiflis after having been wounded in one of the battles during World War I. He died shortly after the war, in 1919. Their only daughter Layya later became a chemist and died in 1994.

Source: Wikipedia