David Kakabadze

Who was David Kakabadze?

Davit' Kakabadze was a Georgian avant-garde painter, graphic artist and scenic designer. A multi-talent, he was also an art scholar and innovator in the field of cinematography as well as an amateur photographer. Kakabadze's works are notable for combining innovative interpretation of European "Leftist" art with Georgian national traditions, on which he was an expert.

Kakabadze was born into a poor peasant family in the village of Kukhi near the town of Khoni. Sponsored by local philanthropists, he studied natural sciences at St. Petersburg University from which he graduated in 1916. At the same time, he attended painting classes at the studio of Dmitroyev-Kavkazsky and did a research in old Georgian arts. After a brief period of working 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 with the Georgian artists Lado Gudiashvili and Shalva Kikodze. The cycle of landscapes reproducing the nature of Kakabadze's native province of Imereti is some of the most interesting of his early works.