Ketevan Magalashvili (1892 Kutaisi – 1973 Tbilisi)

Painter, graphic artist, stage and costume designer, book illustrator.

1911-1915 studies at School of Caucasian Society of Fine Arts, under I.Nikoladze, M.Toidze, O. Shmerling.

1915 she enters the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture. She is a disciple of K.Korovin and N.Kasatkin. In 1917 she drops her study and returns back to Georgia.

1921 Ketevan Magalashvili starts to work in the library of Georgian National Gallery, which was the main center of artistic life of the country for that time. The artist Dimitry Shevardnadze, the founder and director of the Gallery, actively supports the development of the creation of the young artist. Magalashvili mostly works in portrait genre, she paints her friends, acquaintances, artists…

1923 by Public Commissariat of Education she is sent to Paris to continue her study. There together with Georgian artists Helene Akhvlediani, Lado Gudiashvili, David Kakabadze she gets acquainted with the new movements of Modern Western Art. In 1923-26 she attends the Colarossi Free Academy in Paris. Magalashvili’s portraits of that period are painted in realistic artistic manner.

1926 she returns to Georgia and continues to work at National Gallery again, where she works as a conservator. In 1937 she retires from the Gallery, after Dimitry Shevardnandze’s execution.

Magalashvili participates in all exhibitions arranged by the Union of Artists.

The portraits by Ketevan Magalashvili, the portraits of E.Akhvlediani, J.Nikoladze, Al.Machavariani and others, are interesting for both documentary importance and high artistic value. These are psychological portraits, where the artist continues the traditions of realistic painting enriched with the new artistic decisions.

Magalashvili’s art is signed by sharp psychological expression, refined coloristic harmony and great artistic technique.

1930-1940ss she makes the portraits of historical figures: Sh.Dadiani, S.Virsaladze, V.Kuftin and others among them.