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Georgian National Museum Week: Ketevan Magalashvili 120



To start Georgian National Museum Week and celebrate International Museum Day, the National Gallery launched the exhibition, Ketevan Magalashvili 120. The exhibition will be held from 17 May to 22 June 2016.

Ketevan Magalashvili (1894-1973) was born in Kutaisi and schooled in Tbilisi. In 1911 she entered the Painting and Sculpture School of the Society for supporting Caucasian Fine Arts. In 1914 she applied to attend the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. Out of 430 applications, only 32 places were offered. She returned to Tbilisi after two years, without completing the course due to revolutionary events. She commenced work at the National Art Gallery in Tbilisi, and was awarded a scholarship by the Artistic Society to study in Paris.

Commencing her scholarship in Germany for five months, she then moved to Paris. In Paris from 1923-1926, with fellow Georgian artists, Lado Gudiashvili, David Kakabadze, and Elene Akhvlediani, she rented a studio at Campagne-Premiere and attended the free Colorossi Academy (established by Italian sculptor Filippo Colorossi). Paul Gauguin also attended the Academy. She returned to Tbilisi to work at restoring medieval wall paintings at the Metekhi State Museum of Arts. In 1937 she quit work to devote her time to painting.

Below is the wall painting – The Last Supper – a 10th-12th century fresco from the David Gareji Monastery Complex, created by Ketevan Magalashvili.


Following the basic iconography of the Tiflis Portrait School, which emphasized the face and hands, as well as the concept of the background, she furthered this approach, developing a modern approach to portraiture.  She died in 1973 and the age of 79, and is buried in the Didube Pantheon of Public Figures in Tbilisi.

The exhibition presents about 70 paintings and graphic works for the first time, gathered mainly from private collections and the Korneli Kekelidze National Centre of Manuscripts.

The portrait on the museum poster (above) is a self-portrait, painted in 1928.  Below is her 1945 painting of Georgia's Queen Tamar who ruled from 1184-1213.


Two of my favourite paintings in the exhibition are of T. Kakabadze (1924) with a  brown hat and of D. Jabua (1965).



Other favourites in the exhibition include Magglashvili's portrait of M. Kikodze (1965), of M. Chidasheli (1958), and her sister (A Lady in Red, 1947).




Her preferred subjects were women, but she also painted men, such as I. Orbeliani (1925) and A. Ishxneli (1958) with a book.






http://museum.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=69&info_id=13916


MARTINA NICOLLS is an international aid and development consultant, and the author of:- The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).


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