Khairullah Magomedovich Kurbanov was born in Dagestan in 1936. In 1954, he studied at the Art College in Baku and in 1959 moved his studies to the Repin Institute of Art in St. Petersburg. Kurbanov becan teaching in 1965 at the Art College in Makhachkala, Dagestan. That same year he became a member of the Artists’ Union of Dagestan. In 1970, he moved his teaching career to the Art Pedegogic Institute in Makhachkala and became a professor there in 1998. From 1971 through 1998 he was Chairman of the Artists’ Union of Dagestan. Khairullah has been awarded the titles Honored Art Worker of the Dagestan Republic and National Artist of the Dagestan Republic. His wife, Galina Vasilevna Pshenitsina, and two of his children, Arsen and Yaroslav, are also artists.