TAMAR
ABAKELIA

Tamar Abakleia (თამარ აბაკელია 1905-1953) was one of the most successful female artists of the first half of the 20th century – in the 1930s and 1940s. She was a multi-faceted creator: a sculptor, graphic artist, painter and illustrator, a theater and film painter, and finally, a socially and creatively active individual with a strong character.

Tamar Abakelia was born in Khoni in 1905 and began painting and sculpting in her childhood. She enrolled in the Faculty of Graphic Art at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts as soon as it had been established.

After graduating from the Academy of Arts in 1929, in parallel with painting, Tamar Abakelia continued to work in the field of monumental sculpture alongside Georgian sculptors. Among many other famous works, she authored the relief frieze that featured on the façade of the Georgian branch of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism (now the Biltmore Hotel). Along with the creation of sculptural works, beginning from the 1930s, Tamar Abakelia started to work intensively on book illustrations and scenography. 

She died in 1953 at the age of just 47.