Hélène Akhvlediani (1901-1975) 

Modernist artist, stage designer.

Born in Telavi in 1901.

Studies at Tbilisi N. Skliphosofsky Art Studio; Travels to Moscow and gets impressed by Vrubel’s paintings.

In 1919 already participates in Georgian artists exhibition.

In 1921 continues studying at Tbilisi Art Academy in G. Gabashvili class. In 1922 she leaves for Italy for further studies and travels to Rome, Milan, Florence and Venice for 6 months.

In 1924 begins studying at Académie Colarossi in Paris, where her main field of work – urban landscapes – elaborates.

She makes the whole series of Parisian views. It is also in Paris that a big graphic series of her up till now less known Nude is created. Obviously, she never returns to it back in the Soviet Georgia.

She is quite successful in Paris. Her oil cityscapes are bought by collectors and artists including Paul Signac himself. She participates in the exhibitions of “Paris Independent Saloon” and “The Autumn Saloon” as well as arranges personal exhibitions at the gallery “Quatre Chemin”.

In 1926-1927 she is invited to Holland to arrange an exhibition but Akhvlediani sends her paintings and returns to Georgia.

After returning to Tbilisi the stage-director Kote Marjanishvili offers her to work in theatre. Stage design becomes one of the leading spheres for Elene Akhvlediani. In 1928-1941 she designs about 20 performances in various theatres.

In Georgia she mainly work in urban landscapes of Tbilisi, Telavi, Kutaisi. However, Tbilisi occupies such a big place in her work that her art is always associated with Tbilisi by professionals as well as by amateurs.

This theme underwent certain and quite obvious transformations during the decades from 1920es to 1970es and it could be foreseen as the Soviet Realism put its demands to all the fields, branches and genres of art.

Therefore, it can be said that her Parisian cityscapes of 1920es and Tbilisi views of the second half of the 1920es are of a prime significance among her works.

her “Utrillo-like” urban landscapes reveal how far she was from the Avant-garde radicalism; on the contrary, like the representatives of The Paris School she brings her personal history into the art on the one hand (it is much revealed in the Nude series of the Parisian period), and on the other she brings into being the certain idea of “Eternity”. Akin to “Peintres Maudits”, everyday and ordinary urban environment is valued to her; the intimate, personalized but at the same time as if substantialized the quarters, the places the streets-roads where her life proceeds.