Kandelaki Nikoloz

Nikoloz Kandelaki [October 5 (17), 1889, village of Kulashi, current Samtredia Municipality – August 24, 1970, Sukhumi, buried in Tbilisi] a sculptor and one of the founders of modern Georgian sculpture. He was a People's Artist of Georgia (1957). While studying at the St. Petersburg Psychoneurological Institute, he trained in the workshop of the artist L. Dmitriev-Kavkazsky. He began working in the field of sculpture relatively late. From 1922 to 1925, he studied at the Leningrad Higher Art and Technical Institute under the guidance of A. Matveev. In 1926, he returned to Georgia and actively integrated into the country's cultural life. That same year, he was invited to the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts, where he worked from 1926 to 1970 (becoming a professor in 1944). Kandelaki was particularly successful in portraits. He created an entire gallery of portraits depicting Georgian writers, scientists, artists, actors, and military and state figures.

He attached great importance to drawing and utilized the plasticity of form to reveal inner character. Among his early works, notable examples include the portraits of V. Beridze (1935, plaster) and A. Toidze (1937, plaster). His portrait of L. Gudiashvili is especially outstanding (first version 1934; final version 1935, stone, Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts)—it is compositionally complex, expressive, and full of inner dramatism. He resolved the portrait of A. Khorava (1948, bronze) in an interesting manner, demonstrating the actor's exceptional inner strength through the monumentality characteristic of the sculptor. His works are distinguished by profound psychologism and high craftsmanship.

Kandelaki's pedagogical legacy is significant, as he raised generations of Georgian sculptors (T. Abakelia, V. Topuridze, E. Machabeli, Sh. Mikatadze, E. Amashukeli, M. Berdzenishvili, G. Ochiauri, J. Mikatadze, B. Tsibadze, and others). His works are preserved in the Shalva Amiranashvili Museum of Fine Arts, the Dimitri Shevardnadze National Gallery, the State Museum of Oriental Art in Moscow, and private collections.

He was a recipient of state awards. He is buried in the Didube Pantheon of Writers and Public Figures.

Literature: კვასხვაძე შ., ნიკოლოზ კანდელაკი, თბ., 1961; შანიძე ლ., ქართული საბჭოთა ქანდაკება, თბ., 1975; Беридзе В., Езерская Н., Искусство Советской Грузии. 1921–1970, М., 1975.

T. Gersamia