Niko Pirosmani
ნიკო ფიროსმანი
Pirosmani, 1916
Born
Nikoloz Aslanis Dze Pirosmanashvili

5 May 1862
Mirzaani, (Georgia)
Died9 April 1918(1918-04-09) (aged 55)
Tbilisi
NationalityGeorgian
EducationSelf-taught
Known forPainting
MovementNaïve art
Signature

Nikoloz (Niko) Pirosmanashvíli (Georgian: ნიკოლოზ (ნიკო) ფიროსმანაშვილი) was a Georgian naïve art painter.

Biography

House of Niko Pirosmani
House of Niko Pirosmani

Pirosmani was born in the Georgian village of Mirzaani to a peasant family in modern-day Kakheti region. His parents, Aslan Pirosmanashvili and Tekle Toklikishvili, were farmers, who owned a small vineyard, with a few cows and oxen. He was later orphaned and left in the care of his two elder sisters, Mariam and Pepe. He moved with them to Tbilisi in 1870. Pirosmani gradually taught himself to paint. One of his specialties was painting directly into black oilcloth. In 1882, with self-taught George Zaziashvili, he opened a painting workshop, where they made signboards. In 1890, he worked as a railroad conductor. In 1893, he co-founded a dairy farm in Tbilisi, which he left in 1901. Throughout his life, Pirosmani, who was poor, was willing to take ordinary jobs including housepainting and whitewashing buildings. He also worked for shopkeepers in Tbilisi, creating signboards, paintings, and portraits, according to their orders. Although his paintings had some local popularity (about 200 survive) his relationship with professional artists remained uneasy; making a living was always more important to him than aesthetic abstractions.

In April 1918, he died in the 1918 flu pandemic as a result of malnutrition and liver failure. He was buried at the Nino cemetery; the exact location was not registered and is unknown.

Work

Pirosmani's paintings were influenced by the social conditions of his time and place. There are many works about merchants, shopkeepers, workmen, and noblemen groups. Pirosmani was fond of nature and rural life. He rarely employed city landscapes. He made many animal paintings. He was the only Georgian animalist. Pirosmani also was attracted by historical figures and themes such as Shota Rustaveli, Queen Tamar, Giorgi Saakadze, as well as ordinary Georgian people and their everyday lives.

Usually, Pirosmani painted on oilcloth. Unlike other artists, Niko didn't aim at a pure imitation of the nature and paid no attention to details. Some of his paintings are monochrome. His paintings demonstrate the author's sharp compositional consideration. Placements of the figures are frontal, while faces do not demonstrate a specific mood.

Posthumous reputation

Niko Pirosmani on a Georgian lari banknote of the 2002 series.

After his death, Pirosmani gained international reputation when he became admired as a 'naïve' painter in Paris and elsewhere. His paintings were represented at the first big exhibition of Georgian painters in 1918. From 1920 onwards, a number of articles were published about him. The first monograph on Pirosmani was published in 1926 in Georgian, French and Russian.

Interest in Pirosmani increased in the 1950s.

Details from Pirosmani's paintings Threshing and Fisherman in a Red Shirt on the 5 lari banknote of the 2017 series.

In 1969, a film about him was made, titled Pirosmani. He inspired a portrait sketch by Pablo Picasso (1972). Pirosmani is also depicted on a Georgian lari bill (although this bill is rarely seen in circulation today, since 1 lari coins are far more common). A periodic newspaper titled Pirosmani is published in two languages in Istanbul. In 1983 Edward Kuznetsov produced the first catalogue raisonné on Pirosmani's work, entitled Niko Pirosmani, 1862-1918[1].

Exhibitions of his work have been held in Kyiv (1931), Warsaw (1968), Paris (The Louvre) (1969), Vienna (1969), Nice and Marseilles (1983), Tokyo (1986), Zurich (1995), Nantes (1999), Turin (2002), Kyiv, Istanbul (2008), Minsk, Vézelay and Vilnius (2008–2009), Vienna again (2018–19)[2] and Basel (Foundation Beyeler) (2023–2024).[3]

Today, 146 of his works are shown in the Art Museum of Georgia and sixteen paintings are exhibited in the Historical-Ethnographic Museum of Sighnaghi. A monument was installed in Tbilisi. There is also the Niko Pirosmanashvili Museum in Mirzaani, Georgia, in one of his abodes.[4]

Recent discoveries

In March 2011, it was discovered that the writing on the door of Qvrivishvilebi's wine-cellar in Ozaani was made by Pirosmani. On 31 May 2011, during an investigation, experts discovered a painting, which proved to be "Wounded Soldier" by Pirosmani. The painting was given to the National Gallery of Georgia.

Paintings

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Kuznetsov, Edward (1983). Niko Pirosmani, 1862 - 1918. Leningrad: Aurora. ISBN 978-0569088527.
  2. ↑ "Niko Pirosmani". Albertina Wien (in German). Retrieved 21 December 2018.
  3. ↑ "Niko Pirosmani 17 September 2023 – 28 January 2024". Foundation Beyeler. 2023. Retrieved 23 September 2023.
  4. ↑ "Niko Pirosmanashvili museum in Mirzaani". www.georgianholidays.com. Retrieved 21 December 2018.

References

Media related to Niko Pirosmani at Wikimedia Commons

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