Ucha Japaridze

Biography

Ucha Japaridze’s date of birth is recorded in two ways: 4 August 1906 in the Old Style or 17 August in the New Style. These are the same date, but some reference works give 17 August as a day of the Julian calendar, and I would keep to the first reading. The place of birth is also given differently: the town of Gari, or the mountain village of Gari in the Racha region, now in Oni Municipality.

His father, Malakia Japaridze, taught mathematics.

After school in Oni, Ucha went to Tbilisi and in 1922–1924 studied at the people’s art studio of Mose Toidze. From 1924 he was a student in the painting department of the Tbilisi Academy of Arts, where his teachers are named as David Kakabadze, Joseph Charlemagne, Lado Gudiashvili and Evgeny Lanceray. His father’s death in 1925 forced him to leave the academy and return to his family; he could resume his studies only in 1928, and finished the course in 1931. In his youth he also published a printed literary magazine, “Oni”, together with Hertsel Baazov, and in 1929–1932 he belonged to the Association of Revolutionary Artists of Georgia (SARMA).

His first job after the academy was in the ethnography department of the State Museum of Georgia. He took part in expeditions to various corners of the country and gathered material for future paintings. In 1933 he moved to Moscow, worked at the Museum of the Peoples of the USSR and continued to study with well-known Russian painters; the sources do not name them.

From October 1936 Japaridze taught at the Tbilisi Academy of Arts. From 1939 he headed the department of painting and composition, and in 1944 he was given the title of professor. He was rector of the academy in 1942–1944; by other accounts, this term lasted until 1948, and the discrepancy remains unresolved. In 1950–1952, 1955–1962 and 1970–1974 he chaired the board of the Artists’ Union of the Georgian SSR, and in the intervals he was its honorary chairman. He sat on the Soviet Peace Committee, was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet (the legislature) of the Georgian SSR, and from 1944 was a member of the Communist Party. In 1958 he was elected a full member of the USSR Academy of Arts, having become a corresponding member in 1954.

His main picture of the 1940s was, judging by the honours it brought, “May Day Demonstration in Tiflis in 1901” (1939–1941, tempera). For it he received the Stalin Prize, second class, in 1942. The canvas shows a revolutionary procession that brought workers onto the streets of Tiflis, and it is painted in the heroizing manner usual for the subject. The scene “Soso Jughashvili with Ilia Chavchavadze in the Office of the Newspaper ‘Iveria’” belongs to the same circle of themes.

Personally I find another part of his work closer. In the early 1930s he painted scenes of Racha: “Friends of Youth” (1938), “A Mother’s Thoughts” (1945), “The Piper”. He returned to these subjects all his life. He did a great deal of portraiture: a cycle depicting David the Builder, Queen Tamar, Rustaveli, Besiki, Akaki Tsereteli, Ilia Chavchavadze and Vazha-Pshavela was made largely from imagination. His contemporaries he painted realistically: a series of portraits of the poet Galaktion Tabidze, a portrait of the composer Zakaria Paliashvili, and portraits of the scholars Simon Kaukhchishvili and Kornelii Kekelidze. His portraits of his wife are mentioned separately. Among his pencil and pastel works are a portrait of the singer Vano Sarajishvili (1949) and a pastel portrait of the writer Chkheidze (1943).

His murals are well known: two panels of roughly three by eight metres for the conference hall of Imeli, and illustrations to “The Knight in the Panther’s Skin” and “Kako the Brigand”. His “Seeing Off the Alpinist” won a silver medal at the Brussels World Fair in 1958; by some accounts, the painting later ended up in the United States in the private collection of Dwight Eisenhower, but this is hard to verify.

He received the title of People’s Artist of the Georgian SSR in 1946 and People’s Artist of the USSR in 1963, and in 1982 became an honorary citizen of Tbilisi. In 1987 he was awarded the Shota Rustaveli State Prize of the Georgian SSR. He died in Tbilisi on 6 July 1988 and was buried in the Saburtalo cemetery. A museum has been opened in his house on Yakob Nikoladze Street.