Petre Otskheli's sketches not only speak of his broad imagination, technical virtuosity and deep thinking as an artist, but also refer in general to Georgian theater and cinema of the 1920s and 1930s, as well as universal contemporary avant-garde art.

Nikoloz Kandelaki is one of the most outstanding representatives of modern Georgian art, and the development of realistic sculpture in Georgia is associated with both he and Iakob Nikoladze. In addition to his creative genius, Kandelaki was a brilliant educator. He founded the Kandelaki School, where numerous gifted Georgian sculptors honed their craft. His impact on Georgian sculpture was deep and enduring. Born in the village of Kulashi in 1889, Kandelaki attended school in Kutaisi, moving on to pursue his studies at the Leningrad (St.Petersburg) Psycho-Neurological Institute. His medical education provoked his interest in the structure of plants and the human body.

In the history of Georgian repoussé art, the 17th century represents a significant period, marked by the establishment of a goldsmith's workshop amid the challenges and upheavals of the era. The workshop, founded by the prominent Prince of Odishi (Samegrelo), Levan Dadiani, a distinguished figure of the time, has garnered considerable interest. To what extent did the strained family relations within the Dadiani family affect the works produced in this workshop? It is worth recalling how he treated his first wife, the daughter of Sharvashidze. Without apparent reason, he accused her of betrayal, having fallen in love with Nestan-Darejani, the beautiful wife of his uncle, Giorgi Lipartiani. Subsequently, he abducted his aunt and married her.

One of the most prominent representatives of abstract art, Wassily Kandinsky, said “The more frightening the world becomes…the more art becomes abstract.” In Europe of the 1910-20s, abstract or objectless art served as a “preface” to the First and Second World Wars, while in America of the 1940-50s, it was a post-traumatic condition caused by WWII, which also played a transitional role in postmodernism. In Georgia, abstraction emerged as a post-traumatic response to Stalinist art and as a “prophetic” expression of the country’s independence, against the backdrop of the civil war.

In medieval Georgia have been developed a number of local icon-painting styles, among which must be singled out so called Svaneti “school of icon-painting”. Although we don’t have documented evidence about these workshops, the extent material allows us to attribute to Svaneti, north-western highland region of Georgia, an impressive number of painted icons. Numerous icons preserved in the Saveneti Museum and in the local churches demonstrate stylistic and technical features which differ from the Pro-Byzantine stream of medieval Georgian religious painting. The icons produced in the workshops of Svaneti are in majority dating back to the 13th-15th cc. Most of the icons are not in their original place, but their subject, size and shape make us suppose that they were created for different purposes: for chancel barriers, burial places and for private devotion as well.

The history of Georgian fine arts has preserved the sad love story of two great artists. It was love with a tragic end that left an irreversible wound on Ketevan Magalashvili's noble soul and the entire cultural elite of Georgia. In 1938, Ketevan’s husband, Dimitri Shevardnadze, one of the most famous of Georgian artists, was labeled an "enemy of the people." Later, he was imprisoned and executed. They say that for a time afterwards, Ketevan refused to leave the house and locked herself in. According to her family members, she even stopped working, at a complete loss, asking again and again, "Why?" "What for?" No-one could answer these questions.

From the 1880s to 1910, a new stage began in Georgia’s fine arts development, propelled by professionally educated artists of the older generation that "gave birth" to modern Georgian secular painting. It was a move that partially broke the link with the Tiflis feudal, oriental, and portraiture painting school, which ceased to exist in 1880.

Esma Oniani's creative and personal worldview is based on an empirical exploration of pain, sadness, and vanity. In different languages, the word "worldview" presents peculiar linguistic transformations. The Germans, for example, express this idea with the term "Weltschmerz" (world pain), which refers to perceiving the world through spiritual pain. In Oniani’s creative work prevail epistemological beginnings based on cognition and ontological being. Man, as the central value in the world, shapes its cognitive existence. This principle is revealed in the anthropocentrism of Oniani’s poetry and painting, where every color, and everything – painting and word – are grounded in human emotions and expressiveness.

Irakli Sutidze's art provides undeniable evidence that the author's style emerged and developed from his inner world. He painted as he lived, and lived as he painted. He stood at the center of both the surrounding reality and the world invented by him. As such, inanimate objects and living beings around him lived the life he created for them.

The majority of master craftsmen’s identities remain anonymous in the art of the Middle Ages. Nevertheless, because of their extremely special abilities, several old masters' personalities generated a lot of curiosity. In this regard, the gifted goldsmith Beka Opizari, and his senior contemporary, Beshken Opizari, were always popular in Georgia.

Jibson Khundadze (1927-2022) was one of the foremost representatives of the second stage of abstract art in Georgia. He studied at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 1945-52. It was the time when social realism was canonized in all fields of art. The title of his diploma work - "The Rally in Batumi" - proves that at that time everyone had to follow the official requirements. But in spite of the contradictions, even in his student years, he tended to figurativeness and color effect.

In 1929, when Vano Enukidze arrived in Paris, he had already graduated from the Faculty of Socio-Economic Sciences of Tbilisi State University. Together with other young people, Enukidze had been involved in fighting for Georgia's independence, and, seeing the situation worsening in his homeland, he realized it was becoming increasingly risky for him to stay. Without a doubt, he intended to return to Georgia, but circumstances prevented him from ever doing so.

Natela Iankoshvili was an artist entirely absorbed in her creative work. Her paintings represent different stages in her life. She didn’t have a child of her own, and considered her paintings her children. In each of Iankoshvili's works, be it a portrait, a landscape, an easel graphic, or an illustration for a book, the artist's stubborn, bold, firm, and complex character seems fully embodied. Her husband, the writer Lado Avaliani, who studied with Natela Iankoshvili at the Tbilisi Art Academy, believed that her art carried existential importance for her. As proof of their unwavering love that began within the walls of the Academy, Lado Avaliani gave up painting and, with the income from his writing career, fully supported the development of his wife's extraordinary talent.

Guranda Klibadze is an outstanding representative of modern Georgian fine art, whose works convey powerful emotions and dramatic passions. She amazes us with her uncompromising directness in narration, laconic and incredibly tense compositional solution, and a masterful grasp of emotive language. Guranda Klibadze's paintings drag us into the imaginary world with magnetic force, and leave an indelible mark on the viewers’ consciousness.

Zygmunt (Zyga) Waliszewski (1897-1936) was a Polish artist who lived in Georgia from 1903 to 1920. His name is associated with the history of the Georgian avant-garde of the 1910s. In the second half of his life, he was a prominent figure on the Polish art scene. Waliszewski lived and worked in Paris in 1924-1931.

Lado Gudiashvili (1896-1980) is one of the most prominent representatives of Georgian modernist art and the Tbilisi avant-garde, famed for his creative vision and unique style of painting. Lado Gudiashvili was born and raised in a historic neighborhood of Tbilisi’s multicultural milieu at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In 1910, Gudiashvili enrolled at the School of Painting and Sculpture, which had been established in Tbilisi in 1902 under the auspices of the Caucasian Society for the Promotion of Fine Arts. His teacher there was the renowned Tbilisi caricaturist Oscar Schmerling. In addition to honing his skills at painting and drawing, under the guidance of Iacob Nikoladze Gudiashvili also delved into the art of sculpture.

The formation and evolution of socialist realist art in Georgia commenced during the 1930s and 1940s. However, its ideological foundations in Russia were seen between 1922 and 1932. Critical realism (peredvizhniks), constructivism, neoclassicism, and French classical realism conditioned the eclectic visual language typical of socialist realism and its utopian ideology.

Aleksandre Tsimakuridze is recognized as one of the chief supporters of the landscape genre in 20th century Georgian realistic easel painting. Notwithstanding the significant contributions of figures such as David Kakabadze and Elene Akhvlediani, who established landscape painting both as a genre and as a thematic focus in Georgian art, it can be asserted that Aleksandre Tsimakuridze stands out as the first Georgian artist to devote himself entirely to the craft of landscape painting. Apart from a handful of portraits, Aleksandre Tsimakuridze’s artistic oeuvre is predominantly centered on landscape painting. As a result of his efforts, the genre of realistic landscape painting was firmly established in Georgian easel painting. Furthermore, the extensive years he spent teaching were equally significant, since he played a crucial role in nurturing and shaping the professional development of numerous Georgian landscape artists.

Shalva Kikodze’s emergence on the Georgian art scene was comparable to a meteoric phenomenon. The duration of his creative activity spans just fourteen years. In 1908, at the age of 14, his first caricature was published in the Georgian humorous magazine "The Devil's Whip." His final work appeared in October 1921 during an exhibition at "La Licorne" Gallery in Paris, featuring works by three Georgian artists — Lado Gudiashvili, Davit Kakabadze, and Shalva Kikodze.

At the end of the 50s/beginning of the 60s Vera Pagava created a unique graphic style, which she mostly employed for plein-air landscape paintings and occasionally for the production of still lifes.The artist utilized this method to produce dozens of lyrical drawings that capture the fleeting essence of nature. Pagava drew dots and created images on blank pieces of paper using just a pencil (graphite).