Niko Pirosmani

Niko Pirosmani

Niko Pirosmani (Niko Pirosmanashvili) (Georgian: ნიკო ფიროსმანი) (1862 — 1918) was a Georgian primitivist painter.

Biography

Feast with Organ-Grinder Datiko Zemel, 1906, Art Museum of Georgia.

Pirosmani was born in the Georgian village of Mirzaani to a peasant family in the Kakheti province. His parents, Aslan Pirosmanashvili and Tekle Toklikishvili were farmers. They owned a small vineyard, couple of cows and oxes. He was later orphaned and put in the care of his two elder sisters, Mariam and Pepe. He moved with them to Tbilisi in 1870. In 1872 he worked as a servant for wealthy families and learned to read and write Russian and Georgian. In 1876 he returned to Mirzaani and worked as a herdsman.

Pirosmani gradually taught himself to paint. One of his specialties was painting directly into black oilcloth. In 1882 he, with self-taught George Zaziashvili, opened a painting workshop, where they were making 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 always poor, was willing to take up ordinary jobs including housepainting and whitewashing buildings. He also work for shopkeepers in Tbilisi ― he was 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 abstract aesthetics.

In April 1918 he died of malnutrition and liver failure. He was buried at the Nino cemetery; the exact location is unknown as it was not registered.

Work

Niko Pirosmanashvili’s paintings were represented at the first big exhibition of Georgian painters in 1918. From 1920th few articles were published about him in Georgian periodical press. Interests about Pirosmani especially increased in 1950th ― many books were published in Georgia, Russia and other countries. Biographical film and plays were created, musical compositions were composed. His paintings were exhibited in many countries of Soviet Union and Western Europe. Niko’s monument was installed in Tbilisi, museum was opened in Mirzaani. Nowadays, the most part of his works are located in Art Museum of Georgia.

At the beginning of 20th century Pirosmani lived in a little apartment not far from Tbilisi railway station.

Pirosmani’s paintings were in influenced by the social conditions, where he lived. There are many works about merchants, shopkeepers, workmen and noblemen groups. Pirosmanashvili was fond of nature and rural live. He rarely referred to city landscape. Big part of his works are animal paintings. Until today he is the only Georgian animalist. Pirosmani also was attracted by historical figures and themes such as Shota Rustaveli, Queen Tamar, Giorgi Saakadze and others, as well as ordinary Georgian people and their everyday life.

Usually Pirosmani panted on oilcloth. In his paintings it is notable that he didn’t have special education, but it didn’t impede him to create his works ― on the contrary, his paintings are peculiar. Unlike other artists, Niko didn’t aim natural imitation of the nature, didn’t pay attention to details. Some of his paintings are monochrome. The building of his paintings demonstrate the author's sharp compositional consideration. Placements of the figures are frontal, faces doesn’t demonstrate specific mood.

In the 1910s he won the critical enthusiasm of the Russian poet Mikhail Le-Dantyu and the artist Kirill Zdanevich and his brother Ilia Zdanevich. Ilia Zhdanevich wrote a letter about Pirosmani to the newspaper "Zakavkazskaia Rech", which it published on February 13, 1913. He also undertook to publicise Pirosmani's painting in Moscow. The Moscow newspaper "Moskovskaia Gazeta" of January 7 wrote about the exhibition "Mishen" where self-taught painters exhibited, among them four works by Pirosmani: "Portrait of Zhdanevich", "Still Life", "Woman with a Beer Mug", and "The Roe". Critics writing later in the same newspaper were impressed with his talent.

In the same year an article about Niko Pirosmani and his art was published in Georgian newspaper "Temi" .

The Society of Georgian Painters, founded in 1916 by Dito Shevardnadze, invited Pirosmani to its meetings and began to take him up, but his relations with the society were always uneasy. Although he presented to the Society his painting "Georgian Wedding", one of the members published a caricature of him which greatly offended him. His continuing poverty, compounded by the economic problems caused by the First World War, meant that his life ended with his work effectively unrecognised.

Posthumous reputation

However, he developed an international reputation after the war, when he became admired as a 'naive' painter in Paris and elsewhere. The first book on Pirosmani was published (in Georgian, Russian and French) in 1926. He also inspired a portrait sketch by Pablo Picasso (1972). Exhibitions of his work have been held in Kiev (1931), Warsaw (1968), Paris (The Louvre) (1969), Vienna (1969), Nice and Marseilles (1983), Tokyo (1986), Zurich (1995) and Turin (2002), Istanbul (2008), Vilnius (2008–2009).

In Russian literature and song

Pirosmani is also known in Russia for the legend of a romantic encounter with a French actress who visited his town; he was deeply in love with her, and to demonstrate it, bought her enough flowers to fill the square in front of her hotel window (allegedly driving himself bankrupt). The story became famous when it was recounted in a poem by Andrei Voznesensky, and later into a hit song by Alla Pugacheva, Million of Red Roses.

In film

Pirosmani was the subject of a film by Giorgi Shengelaya, made in 1969, that won the Grand Prix at the Chicago Film Festival in 1972.

Director Sergei Parajanov shot a short film entitled "Arabesques on a Pirosmani Theme."

Interesting facts

Niko Pirosmani on Georgian lari.

• Niko Pirosmani is depicted on Georgian lari.
• Periodic newspaper “Pirosmani” is being published in two languages in Istanbul.
• There are kept 146 works of Niko Pirosmani in the Art Museum of Georgia. 16 paintings are represented in Historical-Ethnographic Museum of Sighnaghi.
• From 2006 Pirosmani’s works were successfully represented in Kiev, Istanbul, Minsk, Vézelay and Vilnius. The paintings were seen by more than 350 000 viewers.
• In March of 2011 it was learned that the writing on the door of Qvrivishvilebi’s wine-cellar, in Ozaani, was made by Niko Pirosmani.
• On 31 May 2011 Georgian law enforcements, during one investigation, found the lost painting of Niko Pirosmani ― “Wounded Soldier”. The painting was examined and proved that it was painted by Niko Pirosmani. “Wounded Soldier” was given to National Gallery of Georgia.

References

• Georgian National Museum, Niko Pirosmani 1862-1918, Tbilisi, 2006. No ISBN.
• «Пиросмани», Э Кузнецов, 1975, Искусство.

External links

• Niko Pirosmani Home Page
• Biography and Works of Pirosmani
• Biography
• Olga's Gallery: Niko Pirosmani
• A bilingual (Turkish and Georgian) quarterly journal, called Pirosmani [1] is published in Istanbul.
• A contemporary art gallery that exhibits international emerging artists working in painting, photography, glass, ceramics and sculpture called Pirosmani [2] in Istanbul.

Persondata
Name	Pirosmanashvili, Niko
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1862
Place of birth
Date of death	1918
Place of death