Lado Davidovich Gudiashvili

A gift from the artist to Nino Nicoladze
Acquired from the above by the father of the present owners circa 1947-1948

Paris, Grand Palais des Champs-Elysées, Salon d'Automne, 1 November - 20 December 1922, no.1067
Paris, Galerie Joseph Billiet & Co., Lado Goudiachvili, 9 - 23 January 1925, no. 3

M. Raynal, Lado Goudiachvili, Paris: Editions Au sans Pareil, 1925, illustrated pl.9
V. Beridze, Gudiashvili, Tblisi, 1975,  illustrated pl.8
L.Gagua, Lado Gudiashvili: Kniga vospominanii, statʹi iz perepiski, sovremenniki o khudozhnike, Moscow 1987, illustrated p.81

Structural condition The canvas has been lined with a mechanical wooden stretcher which is ensuring a sound structural support. There is an overall pattern of fine lines of slightly raised craquelure and faint horizontal and vertical stretcher bar lines all of which are stable and secure. Paint surface The paint surface has an even varnish layer. Inspection under ultra-violet light shows scattered retouchings, the most significant of which are: 1) small retouchings on reclining figure, 2) lines of inpainting in the lower left of the compositions, running across the base of the tree, which are approximately 6 and 20 cm in length. 3) Similar lines in the upper right corner which are approximately 3, 5 and 9 cm in length. These lines cover fine fracture kines or tears to the canvas which have been repaired. 4) Fine lines covering craquelure in the upper left of the composition and other small, scattered retouchings. Summary The painting is therefore in good and stable condition and no further work is required.
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The female figure in this superb large-scale work from Gudiashvili's Paris period is thought to be Nino Coquet (1881-1972), née Nicoladze, who was close to the artist and received the painting from him as a gift. A cousin of the great Georgian politician Irakli Tsérétéli, Nino was part of the artistic circles of Montparnasse and rented out rooms to artists during the 1920s. Her charm and beauty were legendary and Louis Aragon based a character in his 1934 book Les Cloches de Bâle on Nino.

Through the paintings of Lado Gudiashvili one falls in love with Georgia’ wrote Maurice Raynault in his 1925 monograph on Gudiashvili. The offered lot, painted when the artist was barely twenty-five years old, is infused with the nostalgia for his homeland that fascinated French audiences. The aesthetic appeal of exotic landscape and mysterious figures is not dissimilar to those of Gauguin’s Tahitian canvases (fig.3). The male figure standing half concealed on the left of the picture resembles the bohemian Kinto peasants from canvases such as Kutezh kinto s zhenshchinei (exh. Salon d’Automne, 1920) while the female figure bears the distinctive features of Gudiashvili’s idealised Georgian beauty. Ironically it is while in Paris, when farthest from his homeland, that Gudiashvili produced his most resonant visions of Georgia.

Having arrived in Paris on New Year’s Day in 1920 Gudiashvili was almost immediately recognised as a significant artistic force, most clearly demonstrated by the acceptance of four canvases at the Salon d’Automne that year. Visiting Gudiashvili’s studio after the exhibition Ignacio Zuloaga, who by this point enjoyed a considerable reputation in Europe, purchased a number of works, and Gudiashvili soon became an integral part of the circle of artists who frequented the Café de la Rotonde. Teachers at the Académie Ronson were impressed by his natural talents, and figures as diverse as André Breton heralded the young Georgian as an important new figure in Paris. The dealer James Rosenburg exhibited eight of Gudiashvili’s paintings in New York in 1923 alongside works by Matisse, Modigliani, Signac and Vlaminck; following a solo exhibition at the Boulle Gallery in 1925 the critic Maurice Reynault published a monograph on the young artist, who was not yet thirty.

Paris held more for Gudiashvili than simply an exhibition space. The influence of the Nabis, in particular Paul Ranson (whose Parisian Academy Gudiashvili briefly attended), is evident in the striking palette, clearly delineated forms and individual Symbolist iconography of the current work. The theme of a reclining female nude together with a scopophilic figure most likely takes inspiration from works such as Ingres’ Grande Odalisque (1814, The Louvre Museum) and Manet’s Olympia (1863, Musée d’Orsay); the horse restrained, is perhaps a reflection of the artist’s own youthful ambition and energy. Both of these motifs feature heavily in Gudiashvili’s oeuvre, for example the latter in Kutezh na Fazeone (1920, Museum of Art named after Sh. Amiranashvili, Tblisi) and the former in Kupal’nitsa v lesu (1921).

Gudiashvili’s success was in part due to his retention of a uniquely Georgian aesthetic. Before leaving for Paris, Gudiashvili assisted in the restoration of ancient frescoes in churches throughout Southern Georgia. The close study of these monuments had a profound effect on his style; the present composition for example, is theatrical but economical, with boldly outlined figures distinctly separated into fore and back grounds with a limited degree of modulation in the colouring. The adaptation of these Byzantine formal arrangements set Gudiashvili apart from his contemporaries.