Since his childhood, Baqi Urmanche had been surrounded with craftwork items, and started painting and modelling figures of animals in his early years. His mother was an embroideress, and his father dyed fabrics. His love for colorful pieces of popular craft is reflected in the painting At the Separator. In the background, the artist painted drapery typical for traditional Tatar homes. It is a patchwork fabric created for making curtains, bedspreads and quilts.

The color accents, red, pink, white, green and yellow, allude to popular art, to the colors of traditional Tatar clothes. Those bright colors create a joyful, festive mood. Urmanche had an eye for poetry in everyday life, in its most commonplace aspects.

The artist painted a woman who is taking a few minutes’ break from her work in the kitchen. The image is so clear that we can see right away that she is a woman that earns her living by working, with a calm but determined character, a good housewife that can handle any work. Her eyes looking downward, her closed lips and the color in her cheeks reflect the mentality of a Tatar woman of those times: she is modest, shy and serious, despite her youth.

Here, the interior is not just a background but a natural environment in which the main character lives. It helps to highlight her image, brings out its typical nature. On the table, we see a simple still life: green onion, black bread, kitchenware, but alongside them, there is a separator, an object that was very rare in the 1920s. The artist uses the separator as a sign of a new life coexisting with traditional conservative lifestyle.

Urmanche painted At the Separator right after his return from Moscow to his native Kazan. After finishing his studies in the Higher Art and Technical Studios of Moscow, he finally felt that he was a real artist. On returning to Kazan, he started working with great enthusiasm. According to his own memories, in those years he was “passionately involved in creative work and teaching, devoting himself totally to his favorite occupation”. In those years, he was teaching in an art college, directed the art department of the House of Tatar Culture, wrote articles, created illustrations and, certainly, continued painting.