The Ministry of Culture and Sports of Georgia honors David Kakabadze’s memory and his immense effort to develop Georgian culture. 135 years have passed since the birth of David Kakabadze.
Davit Kakabadze was a distinguished artist and one of the most important representatives of Georgian modernist painting.
In David Kakabadze’s work, different currents and artistic methods of modern art of the 20th century are shown. He created abstractions, collages, cubistic, and constructive compositions and remained a distinctly self-sufficient Georgian artist.
It is particularly notable that David Kakabadze’s achievements during his stay abroad are particularly noteworthy. He started his active creative activity in Russia, where he founded an art union with the famous artist Pavel Pilonov. The 30-year-old painter who returned to Georgia attracted the attention of the artists’ society, which decided to send him to Paris with Lado Gudiashvili to learn modern art there. Years spent in France gave the creator great experience.
In Paris, several theoretical works of artists about art were the first works of Georgian art science. Davit Kakabadze has created countless film project stereo equipment. From 1922 to 1925, its invention was patented in America, France, Germany, and other countries.
Davit Kakabadze’s exhibition in New York is noteworthy. The exhibition featured the artist’s abstract sculpture “Z,” 19 watercolors, and six collages. Subsequently, these works were placed in the gallery near Yale University and are kept there today. In this gallery’s catalog, published in 1950, we read about David Kakabadze: “He was the most interesting contemporary painter and sculptor.”
David Kakabadze’s works, except those of Georgia, are preserved in different countries, namely in the Berardo Museum in Lisbon, the Tissen Museum in Madrid, the United States of America, and the gallery near Yale University.
The communist regime met the painter who returned from Paris in 1927. Modernist artistic thinking was unacceptable for Soviet Georgia. David Kakabadze could no longer participate in Western creative life, and in his homeland, he created works primarily for theater and cinema. He decorated parades and filmed a documentary about the oldest samples of Georgian culture. From 1928-1948, he was a professor at Tbilisi Academy of Arts; from 1933-1942, he was a pro-rector. In the last period of his life, the painter had less opportunity to work.
David Kakabadze died in 1952. He was buried in the Pantheon of Didube writers and social activists.
