[KAKABADZE’S EARLY YEARS IN PARIS / NO. 18 / 500 LIMITED EDITION] პარიზი 1920-1921-1922-1923 წლები / P’arizi 1920-1923 Ts’lebi = Paris 1920-1921-1922-1923 annees. Designed by Is. Karseladze

KAKABADZE, DAVID (1889-1952).

Imprimerie Polyglotte N. L. Danzig, Paris, 1924. 

Original wrappers. Small 4to. (25 x 20,5 cm). Text in Georgian, the title is bilingual in 
Georgian and French on the front cover. 63 pp. text and 16 numbered b/w reproduced 
plates of Kakabadze’s artworks, along with his stereoscopic apparatus designed in 
1922 by himself. Wear on covers extremities and spine, splits on the wrapper’s flaps, age-toned covered and first blank pages, ex-owner's inscription, and signature, interior clean. Overall, a fair/good copy. One of 500 copies and edition printed on O.C.F. (Outhenin Chalandre fils) laid paper. All copies were numbered, this is 18/500. The total print run including the first ten copies printed on Japan paper is 510.

The first and only edition of this book covering Georgian artist Kakabadze’s early years in Paris from 1920 to 1923, where he lived from 1919 to 1927.

After a brief period of working as a painter and educator in Tbilisi, David Kakabazde went to Paris where he lived from 1919 to 1927. He partook in the Société des Artistes Indépendants exhibitions and joint exhibitions with the Georgian artists Lado Gudiashvili and Shalva Kikodze. The cycle of landscapes reproducing the nature of Kakabadze’s native province of Imereti is some of the most interesting of his early works. During his stay in Paris, Kakabadze was attracted by “subjectless painting”, and worked on problems of pictorial technique, occasionally using metal, mirror glass, stained glass, and other such materials in place of paints. He soon went over to an even more “Leftist” position and paid generous tribute to cubism. He lectured on various aspects of visual arts in Paris and, developing his interest in kinetic form, in 1923 he constructed a film camera that produced the illusion of relief and thus became one of the pioneers of three-dimensional cinema. By the mid-1920s he had rejected his cubist-influenced style in favour of more abstract sculpture and painting.

Chepyzov 5., As of December 2024, OCLC shows three copies. One is in BnF, two are in the US Libraries: (Yale Uni., and Philadelphia MA Libraries).