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Art of the 20th Century
Niko Pirosmani
Niko Pirosmanashvili
(b Mirzaani, E. Kiziki region, Kakheti, ?17 May 1862; d Tbilisi, 7 April 1918).
Georgian painter. He was orphaned at an early age and brought up by his father’s employer in Tbilisi. He worked first as a brakesman on the Transcaucasian Railway, then, following a brief and financially unsuccessful foray into business, he became an itinerant painter of signboards, windows and murals, working mainly for the shopkeepers in and around Tbilisi. He had no special schooling and evolved his own naive style based upon the colours, rhythms and spatial concepts of Georgian folk art. His animal paintings and portraits are particularly impressive. His Carousal series (c. 1906; Tbilisi, Mus. A. Georg.) depicts traditional aspects of Georgian life.
