UCHA JAPARIDZE – 120

On 26 September 2026, at 6:00 pm, the Dimitri Shevardnadze National Gallery will open Ucha Japaridze 120, an anniversary retrospective marking the 120th anniversary of the artist’s birth.

Ucha Japaridze (1906–1988) was one of the founders and leading figures of Socialist Realist painting in Georgia. His long artistic career was closely bound up with the cultural policies of the Soviet era and the artistic priorities they imposed. At the same time, during the early years of his career, Japaridze participated in the formation of modern Georgian painting. His early works reveal a clear dialogue with modernist tendencies, a bold spirit of artistic inquiry, and an interest in formal experimentation.

Socialist Realism—the officially sanctioned artistic method of Soviet cultural policy—assigned art the task of constructing an idealized vision of Soviet society. Works of art thus became important vehicles for disseminating state ideology, social values, and historical narratives. Accordingly, Socialist Realist art placed particular emphasis on collective labour, social transformation, heroism, optimism, and the formation of the “New Soviet Man.”

In Japaridze’s art, the principles of Socialist Realism are evident both in his choice of subject matter and in his realist pictorial language. His diverse body of work encompasses compositions addressing historical and social themes, depictions of labour, portraits, landscapes, still lifes, and genre scenes.

His long and prolific career was recognized with numerous state awards and honorary titles.

Yet Japaridze’s art cannot be reduced to an official ideological programme. Personal, nostalgic, and intimately familiar motifs occupy a distinctive place in his work: his native region of Racha and the village of Ghari, rural life, family members, and people close to him. In his realist sketches, studies, and genre paintings, each figure is rendered with a strong sense of individual character. The interplay between official artistic doctrine and personal experience forms one of the exhibition’s central themes.

Japaridze received his early artistic training at the Oni School of Art and later studied in Tbilisi at Mose Toidze’s studio. In 1924, he enrolled in the painting department of the Tbilisi Academy of Arts. His encounters with Mose Toidze, Lado Gudiashvili, Davit Kakabadze, Evgeny Lanceray, Sandro Tsimakuridze, and Aleksandre Bazhbeuk-Melikov left a significant mark on his early development. Japaridze subsequently emerged as a distinctive realist painter and remained committed to this artistic language throughout his life.

The exhibition brings together works from the collection of the Ucha Japaridze House Museum, alongside paintings from the collections of the Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts, the Dimitri Shevardnadze National Gallery, and private lenders.

Through its broad selection and diversity of genres, the exhibition offers visitors a fuller understanding of Japaridze’s artistic range and reveals how the official artistic demands of his time coexist in his work with the artist’s personal and intimate world.

Exhibition organizer: Ramaz Japaridze
Curators: Lika Giorgadze and Maia Chikvaidze

Supported by:

Ministry of Culture of Georgia
Creative Georgia, LEPL
Georgian National Museum