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Kakabadze David

Modernist Georgian artist David Kakabadze was at the same time an art theoretician, scientist, and inventor. His name is one of the most important in the history of 20th-century Georgian painting.
David was born in 1889 in the village of Kukhi in Imereti. Soon, his family settled in Kutaisi, where he was sent to the Kutaisi Gymnasium. From his childhood, David was distinguished by multifaceted interests, with a tendency towards both natural science subjects and painting. When, in 1910, he went to St. Petersburg to study at the Academy of Arts and found himself not properly prepared for the competition, he entered the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. At the same time, he received artistic education in the Dimitriev-Kavkazsky workshop. Simultaneously, he attended art history courses at the university…
It is interesting that in 1915, the young David in St. Petersburg formulated his action plan in the form of a credo, where the first point was long and persistent work, followed by the study of important artistic systems of different eras and regions. One of the points stated: An artist must remember that art is a science
In St. Petersburg, David Kakabadze became a participant in Russian avant-garde art. He belonged to the circle of modernist artists who believed that a work of art should be created not only by inspiration but also through great knowledge. In 1914, he founded an artistic association with the famous Russian artist Pavel Filonov. The name of their manifesto is self-explanatory: северные картины.
In 1918, David Kakabadze returned to Georgia. At this time, he was 30 years old and had received significant university and artistic education. In 1919, by the decision of the Georgian Society of Artists, young talented Georgian artists were sent to Paris to engage with modern art. Initially, David Kakabadze and Lado Gudiashvili were chosen for this purpose.
From 1919 to 1927, David lived and worked in Paris. Various currents and artistic methods of modernist art of the 20th century were reflected in his work. David Kakabadze created abstractions, collages, cubist and constructivist compositions, while remaining uniquely independent and a national creator.
Several theoretical works by the artist on the subject of art were published in Paris, which are actually the first works in Georgian art history. At the same time, since 1921, he had been working on scientific inventions and created a stereo device for film projection without glasses. From 1922 to 1925, Kakabadze’s invention was patented in America, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain, and other countries.
It should be especially noted that in 1926, David Kakabadze’s works (abstract sculpture  Z, 19 watercolors, and 6 collages) were exhibited at the famous international exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum in New York City. The exhibition was dedicated to Wassily Kandinsky’s 60th birthday and was one of the first major presentations of European modernist art in America. For this exhibition, David Kakabadze’s works were selected alongside those of artists such as Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque, Jean (Hans) Arp, Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, David Burliuk, Wassily Kandinsky, Juan Gris, Joan Miró, Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, and others.
Later, these works were included in the gallery at Yale University and are still kept there. In the catalog of this gallery published in 1950, we read about David Kakabadze: He was one of the most interesting among all contemporary artists and sculptors
In 1927, the artist returned to his homeland from Paris and was met by the communist regime. Modernist artistic thinking was unacceptable for Soviet Georgia. Consequently, the artist could no longer participate in the Western art process. In his homeland, he continued to work mainly in theater and cinema, organizing parades and making a documentary film about the antiquities of Georgian culture.
In the last period of his life, the artist was rejected and unemployed. His letter to Stalin is known, where he asked for a position as a school teacher, stating he could teach not only drawing and art but also physics, mathematics, biology, Russian, and French. The letter remained unanswered.
David Kakabadze died in 1952. Important works of David Kakabadze are kept in different countries of the world alongside Georgia: in the collection of the Berardo Collection Museum in Lisbon; in the Thyssen Museum of Madrid; and in the United States of America, in the gallery near Yale University.
David Kakabadze was an artist and a scientist at the same time. As noted by him, art itself was science. With a scientific approach, on the basis of sequential analysis, his original artistic heritage is created, where the intellectual and creative origins appear with equal force and unite in a harmonious form.

David Kakabadze
Birth/Death1889-1952Share

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