Painter, illustrator, sculptor, screenplay author, journalist, costume and stage designer: the renowned Georgian artist Rezo Gabriadze (*1936) is all this and much more. Life itself is always at the center of his oeuvre, with the tragi-comical moments of everyday existence that he captures in many different ways, through his enormously inventive spirit, his creative powers, and his intelligence. Throughout, "a delicate, melancholy undertone runs through the creations of this gentle poet, like a cantus firmus," writes Michael Semff.
Gabriadze's paintings and the gouaches, which tend toward the painterly, comprise the centerpiece of this richly illustrated volume. The art of a great man, whose works have already been seen in famous museums like the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, the Dostoyevsky Museum in Moscow, the Pushkin Museum, and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus in Munich. This multi-talent has drawn international attention, especially since opening his puppet theater in Tiflis in 1981. This allowed him to fulfill one of his dearest wishes: to create a small universe in which all of the creative strings are held by in his own hand, so to speak.