Niko Pirosmani

The youngest of four children, Nikolai, was presumably born into the peasant family of gardener Aslan in the village of Mirzaani in Kakheti.

After the death of his parents, he lived with the family of E. Kalantarova, the widow of a manufacturer; he learnt to read in Georgian and Russian, some time he studied craft at a printing house.

He opened a workshop of decorative painting together with his comrade Gigo Zaziashvili in Tiflis; however, they did not get any orders.

After working as a conductor at the railway station and trying to sell milk, he began to earn a living painting.

Futurists Zdanevich and M. Le-Dentu began to propagate Pirosmani’s work.

Laudatory articles about the artist written by I. Zdanevich and E. Pskovitinov were published at newspapers; in Moscow, the exhibition of Futurists “Target” was held; 4 paintings by Pirosmani were exhibited there; young Georgian avant-garde artists D. Kakabadze, V. Gudiashvili and D. Shevardnadze became interested in the art of the self-taught painter.

A personal one-day exhibition of his works was held at the K. Zdanevich’s Tiflis workshop; it was a success; the artist was invited to the newly opened Society of Georgian Artists and gained some popularity; the public in Tiflis began to collect his paintings. A derogatory caricature of the artist appeared in the newspaper “Sakhalkho Purtseli”; it played a fatal role in the life of the diffident creator.

The artist getting increasingly distant from the society died at the hospital; his remains were not found on the place of his conditional burial.

The time of Pirosmani’s world fame: an exhibition of his paintings took place at the Louvre (Margarita de Sevres allegedly came to see it). After that, many exhibitions were held in different countries of the world, including Japan.