Personality and Life Metamorphosis. Sculptor Nikoloz Kandelaki

The book describes the aspect of the works of one of the most picturesque figures of his time, Professor of the Tbilisi Academy of Arts, People’s Artist of Georgia, the founder of contemporary Georgian monumental sculpture - Nikoloz Kandelaki (1889-1970), the meaning, aspirations and outcomes of which cover a wide range of society and presents not only the personality of the sculptor, but also the life of Tbilisi and Tbilisians of that time. Moreover, during N. Kandelaki’s activity (1926-1970), the capital city was considered as the camertone of Georgia in terms of ideas and cultural creativity. The book is, first of all, valuable with a wide
range of published archival material, which includes the memories related to N. Kandelaki and presented into scientific-popular language. The sculptor’s contemporaries in these letters refer not only to N. Kandelaki’s life episodes, but also tell us about the important events occurred in Tbilisi at that time and the attitude of the society towards these events. Evaluations made by famous authors of memoirs were widely reported by the Tbilisi society of the last century. The letters also show the hither- to unknown pages of Tbilisi stories and fill the history of Georgian contemporary fine art with more comprehensive notes. Therefore, bringing the stories conveyed in the text of memoirs to light turns them into a kind of written source, on the basis of which archival information is given historical value and is passed down from generation to generation. The book is also valuable for its visual material of hitherto unpublished busts by N. Kandelaki, including sculptures in the open space. The gallery of sculptural or pictorial portraits and friendly caricatures of the sculptor performed
by his colleagues, famous artists, clearly shows the importance of N. Kandelaki’s works in the society. Therefore, the book has a high public value, its structure presented through archival and visual material is considered as a symbol of memory not only for the culture of Tbilisi, but for the culture of Georgia as a whole. The mentioned documentary material was envisaged for N. Kandelaki monograph. However, after a large number of the sculptor’s works suddenly being found, it was decided that the documentary material should be published independently in the future. Therefore, we would like to express our gratitude to the Department
of Culture, Education, Sports and Youth Affairs of Tbilisi City Hall, which enabled us to implement this within the framework of the “Creative Tbilisi” program.