Vladimir (Lado) Gudiashvili, a Georgian painter, graphic artist, monumentalist, theater and cinema artist, book illustrator, People’s Artist of Georgia, and laureate of the Shota Rustaveli Prize, is one of the outstanding representatives of Georgian modernism.
Lado Gudiashvili was born in 1896 in Tbilisi. From 1910 to 1914, he studied at the Tiflis School of Painting and Sculpture of the Caucasian Society. In 1915, his first personal exhibition was held. Between 1916 and 1919, Gudiashvili took part in significant expeditions organized by the Georgian Society of Artists and the Historical and Ethnographic Society of Georgia. In 1916, he participated in the study expedition of the 15th-century frescoes of the Nabakhtevi Church and the David Gareji monastery complex. In 1917, he joined an expedition in southern Georgia (present-day Turkey) to explore unique monuments of Georgian architecture. Copies of his frescoes are invaluable to national culture.
In 1917-1918, Gudiashvili, along with other prominent Georgian and foreign modernists, created important wall paintings for Tbilisi art clubs, none of which survived the Soviet period. In 1919, together with David Kakabadze, Kirill Zdanevich, Zygmunt Waliszewski, and Serge Sudeikin, he participated in painting the lobby of Café Kimeorion (the lower floor of today’s Rustaveli Theater), which was opened under the leadership of the Blue Horns group. The Kimeorion painting was restored in the early 1980s.
In 1919, on the initiative of the Georgian Society of Artists, Gudiashvili went to Paris with David Kakabadze. He settled in the Montparnasse district and frequently visited the famous Café de la Rotonde. In France, he befriended many renowned writers, artists, and art critics such as Léonard Tsuguharu Foujita, Amedeo Modigliani, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Ignacio Zuloaga, Ilya Ehrenburg, Maurice Raynal, Pierre Worms, and André Salmon. His studio was frequently visited by André Breton, Philippe Soupault, and Louis Aragon… Gudiashvili was also an active participant in Parisian carnivals.
His painting soon garnered attention in Paris:
In 1920, at the Autumn Salon, he exhibited four works: Feast, Idyll, Drinking Bout of the Kintos with a Woman, and A Toast at Dawn. Two of these works were sold within the first days of the exhibition.
In 1921, an exhibition of Georgian artists’ works, including those by Gudiashvili, Shalva Kikodze, and David Kakabadze, was held at Galerie La Licorne in Paris.
In 1922, a solo exhibition of Gudiashvili’s works was organized at Galerie La Licorne. The renowned French art critic Maurice Raynal, in the preface to the exhibition catalog, highlighted the artist’s skill and originality.
In 1925, his second solo exhibition was held at Galerie Billiet. The catalog included a letter from the famous French art critic and poet André Salmon about the artist.
In 1925, Maurice Raynal’s monograph Lado Gudiashvili was published in Paris.
Gudiashvili’s popularity continued to grow. His works were acquired by private collectors and Paris galleries. In 1923, a New York gallery opened with an exhibition displaying Gudiashvili’s work alongside those of André Derain, Raoul Dufy, Henri Matisse, Amedeo Modigliani, Paul Signac, and Maurice de Vlaminck. The foreword of the exhibition catalog was written by the gallery’s founder, the American artist and collector James N. Rosenberg.
In 1924, Gudiashvili, along with Alexandre and Natalia Benois, Serge Sudeikin, and Vasily Shukhaev, artistically organized a performance for an Italian opera troupe in Paris. At the end of 1925, Lado Gudiashvili returned to Georgia, where instead of an independent republic, he found Soviet Georgia and, accordingly, a completely changed reality
In 1926, he became a professor at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts’ Faculty of Painting. In 1935, together with director Vladimir Mujiri, he created the first Georgian animated film, Argonauts. Upon his return to Georgia, Kote Marjanishvili invited Gudiashvili to work in the theater. In 1932, the doctrine of socialist realism was implemented in the Soviet Union.
In 1946, by decision of the Catholicos-Patriarch of Georgia, Gudiashvili painted the altar of St. George’s Cathedral in Kashueti, as a result of this, the artist was banned from teaching.
In 1957, for his 60th birthday, a personal exhibition was planned at the Tbilisi National Gallery. Despite censorship and initial restrictions, young artists forced open the closed doors, allowing the exhibition to take place. Over 800 works were displayed, achieving great success.
After his Parisian period, Gudiashvili’s artistic style evolved significantly, marked by different phases in his painting and graphic works. His diverse legacy spans nearly 70 years of creative work. Gudiashvili continued to work actively until the end of his life, leaving behind an invaluable artistic legacy.