Lado Gudiashvili

Lado Gudiashvili (Georgian: ლადო გუდიაშვილი) (March 18, 1896 – July 20, 1980) was a 20th-century Georgian painter. Gudiashvili was born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi) on March 18 (30), 1896 into a family of a railroad employee. He studied in the Tiflis school of sculpture and fine art (1910–1914), where he met the Armenian artist Alexander Bazhbeuk-Melikyan, and later in Ronson's private academy in Paris (1919–1926). For a while, Gudiashvili belonged to a group of Georgian poets called "The Blue Horns" (1914–1918), who were trying to connect organically the Georgian national flavour with the creative structure of French symbolism. In Paris, he was a constant customer of the famous "La Ruche," a colony of painters where he met I. Zuloaga, Amedeo Modigliani, Natalia Goncharova, and Mikhail Larionov. Gudiashvili's work was greatly influenced by Niko Pirosmanashvili.

Filled with the charm of Georgian life, the painter's early works combine dramatic grotesque with the charm of poetic mystery (Live Fish, 1920, Art Museum of Georgia). Closeness to the traditions of old Caucasian and Persian art was amplified upon his return to Georgia in 1926. Gudiashvili's colours become warmer, and the perception of the world as a theater grew stronger (many of Gudiashvili's paintings were either inspired by operas and balles or serve to depict actresses in costumes). Like his compatriots (Grigol Robakidze, Konstantine Gamsakhurdia), Gudiashvili freely used mythological allegories (The Walk of Seraphita, 1940), the center of which was a graciously beautiful woman imagined as the mysterious "Goddess of the Earth."

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