A local Soviet-born artist has been commissioned for four nine-foot female figurines that will be installed on the Market Street Bridge, City Parks and Recreation Director Larry Zehnder said.

Mr. Zehnder said they will depict the four seasons of the year - with two installed on pedestals on either end of the bridge.

He said private funds are being raised to pay for the artwork by Daud Akhriev, who has a studio on the Southside on Williams Street.

David Unruh of the Rivercity Company said the figurines are $58,000 each. He said funding has been completed for two of the pieces.

He said it may be about a year until the bronze castings are installed.

Mr. Zehnder, who said the city has taken over the public art program from Allied Arts, said it will be "a fabulous project."

Mr. Unruh said, "It will be a real nice addition for our public art. It is going to be quite magnificent."

He said it is anticipated that the figurines will be lighted at night.

Mr. Akhriev was born in the former Soviet Union in 1959. He studied classical painting and drawing for 14 years, eight of them in St. Petersburg, Russia. In that city he received his masters degree with honors from the Repin Institute, under the tutelage of the late Piotr Fomin. In 1991 he emigrated to Chattanooga, Tennessee and has remained there since. Mr. Akhriev, now a U.S. citizen, spends his summers painting landscapes throughout the world with his artist wife and son. During the rest of the year he paints in his Chattanooga studio.

In 2007, Mr. Akhriev won an award of excellence from Oil Painters of America, and Second Place in the Greenhouse Gallery’s Salon International, in San Antonio, Tex. Greenhouse has twice included Mr. Akhriev’s work in International Masters, an invitational exhibition.
In 1993 the Hunter Museum of American Art presented a solo exhibition of his work.

His is on regular exhibit at Miller Galleries located in both Cincinnati, Ohio, and Winter Park, Fla. In April, 2006, Miller Gallery presented a solo exhibition of Mr. Akhriev’s work. He also has paintings at Turtle Gallery on Deer Isle, Maine.

The Chattanooga Symphony and Opera Guild honored Mr. Akhriev as one of Chattanooga’s master artists in Music and Masterpieces, 2006. He has participated in group shows in New York, London, Zurich, Oslo and around the Southeastern United States. 2006 Group shows included Oil Painters of America annual juried show in Mazula Montana (International Artist award of Excellence), and “Salon International” at Greenhouse Gallery in San Antonio (awarded Juror’s top 50 and Honorable Mention), and a show in Almaty, Kazakhstan with two colleagues from St. Petersburg, Russia.

Mr. Akhriev is trained in monumental public art, and has four murals in Chattanooga: the Collegedale Seventh-Day Adventist Church, the Samaritan Center and St. Peter’s Episcopal Church.

Mr. Akhriev has taught summer courses in landscape for the Florence Academy of Art, in Florence, Italy. In 2003, Akhriev and his wife were Artists in Residence at the Robert M MacNamara Foundation in Westport Island, Maine, for six weeks. He has taken small groups of painting students to Tuscany in 2004-2006. The University of Tennessee Chattanooga has invited him to be a guest instructor in their painting program.

Artists Magazine featured Mr. Akhriev in the February, 2006 issue. His work is in two books in English. Daud Akhriev, Stylistic Pluralism was published in 2002 by CommonPlace publishing. He is also featured in Traditions Rediscovered, the Finley Collection of Russian Art. Mr. Akhriev’s drawings are in several books about the Repin Institute, both in Russian and in Chinese.

His studio is at 1405 Williams.