David Kakabadze Collection
David Kakabadze (1889–1952), one of Georgia’s most important artists, developed an early and lasting interest in photography. While studying at the Kutaisi Gymnasium, he was influenced by the amateur photographer A. Labensky, whose work was published in Russian photographic journals and received recognition at the First Caucasian Photographic Exhibition held in Tbilisi in 1897.
Kakabadze’s earliest photographs date from his school years and include images of the artist himself as a gymnasium student, as well as portraits and group photographs of people from his native village. From that period onward, he rarely parted with his camera. Alongside his artistic practice, he was an accomplished photographer and also invented a stereoscopic cinema system.
Particularly notable within Kakabadze’s photographic archive are series depicting architectural monuments and ethnographic scenes from different regions of Georgia, which today represent an important visual record of the country’s cultural and social history.
