Who is David Kakabadze?

Davit’ Kakabadze (Georgian: დავით კაკაბაძე) (August 20, 1889 – May 10, 1952) was one of the leading Georgian campaigner painter, graphic performer and scenic designer. A multi-talent, he was moreover an art scholar and innovator in the dome of cinematography as with ease as an amateur photographer. Kakabadze’s works are notable for combining protester interpretation of European “Leftist” art taking into account Georgian national traditions, on which he was an expert.

Kakabadze was born into a destitute peasant relatives in the village of Kukhi close the town of Khoni. Sponsored by local philanthropists, he studied natural sciences at St. Petersburg University from which he graduated in 1916. At the thesame time, he attended painting classes at the studio of Dmitroyev-Kavkazsky and did a research in obsolescent Georgian arts. After a brief epoch of committed as a painter and educator in Tbilisi, he went to Paris where he lived from 1919 to 1927. He partook in the Société des Artistes Indépendants exhibitions and joint exhibitions subsequent to the Georgian artists Lado Gudiashvili and Shalva Kikodze. The cycle of landscapes reproducing the flora and fauna of Kakabadze’s original province of Imereti is some of the most captivating of his into the future works. During his stay in Paris, Kakabadze was attracted by “subjectless painting,” and worked on problems of pictorial technique, occasionally using metal, mirror glass, stained glass and new such materials in place of paints. He soon went on culmination of to an even more “Leftist” position, and paid generous great compliment to cubism. He lectured on various aspects of visual arts in Paris and, developing his interest in kinetic form, in 1923 he build up a film camera that produced the magic of sustain and fittingly became one of the pioneers of three-dimensional cinema. By the mid-1920s he had rejected his cubist-influenced style like-minded of more abstract sculpture and painting.

Having return to Georgia in 1927, Kakabadze continued his Imereti themes in further monumental decorative landscapes, including industrial landscapes. Around the similar time, he collaborated taking into consideration the leading Georgian theatre director Kote Marjanishvili to develop several set designs for Marjanishvili’s theatre in Kutaisi. In 1931, he afterward produced a documental film “The Old Monuments of Georgia”.

Kakabadze became a professor at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 1928, but came under pressure from Soviet authorities for “failure” to resign Formalism and become accustomed to the dogmas of Social realism. Eventually, he was dismissed from the Academy in 1948.

Kintsurashvili, Ketevan (2013), “David Kakabadze, Georgian Modern Artist and Inventor,” New York: Nova, ISBN 9781619428508. Kintsurashvili, Ketevan & Janiashvili, David (2013), “David Kakabadze,” Tbilisi: Bakur Sulakauri Publishing, ISBN 978-9941-15-786-8 Кинцурашвили, Кетеван (2002), “Давид Какабадзе, Классик XX Века,» Арбат: Санкт-Петербург.