Niko Pirosmanashvili's Paintings: An Exhibition / edited by G. Bukhnikashvili ; with contributions by Mamia Dudučava, Lado Gudiashvili, Giorgi Leonidze, 1938. In Georgian and Russian.

ნიკო ფიროსმანაშვილის სურათების გამოფენა [წერილები მისი ცხოვრებისა და შემოქმედების შესახებ, გამოცემული გარდაცვალებიდან მე-20 წლისთავზე] / პასუხისმგებელი რედაქტორი გ. ბუხნიკაშვილი ; წერილების ავტორები: მამია დუდუჩავა, ლადო გუდიაშვილი, გიორგი ლეონიძე, გ. ბუხნიკაშვილი ; ხელოვნების მუზეუმი "მეტეხი."
[თბილისი] : ხელოვნების მუზეუმი "მეტეხის" გამოცემა, 1938 (დაბეჭდილია საქართველოს სახალხო კომისართა საბჭოს სტამბაში). 40 გვერდი : [4] ჩართული ფურცელი პორტრეტითა და ილუსტრაციებით ; 18 სმ.
სათაურ ფურცელი ქართულ და რუსულ ენებზე; მე-4 წერილის ტექსტი რუსულ ენაზეა. დანართი (ნახატების კატალოგი): გვ. 33-40.
რბილი გამომცემლობის ყდა. ტირაჟი 1000 ც.
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Niko Pirosmanashvili's Paintings: An Exhibition [essays on his life and work, issued on the twentieth anniversary of his death] / edited by G. Bukhnikashvili ; contributions by Mamia Dudučava, Lado Gudiashvili, Giorgi Leonidze, and G. Bukhnikashvili ; Art Museum "Metekhi."
[Tbilisi] : Publication of the Art Museum "Metekhi," 1938 (printed at the Press of the Council of People's Commissars of the Georgian SSR). 40 pp. : [4] inserted leaves with portrait and illustrations ; 18 cm.
Title page in Georgian and Russian; the fourth essay printed in Russian. Appendix (illustrated catalogue of exhibited works): pp. 33-40.
Original soft publisher's wrappers. Print run of 1,000 copies.
Condition: wrappers good, corners rubbed, small chip to the upper corner and a short opening at the head of the spine; text block complete throughout, plates present and undamaged.

Issued by Tbilisi's Metekhi Art Museum - housed at the time in the historic Metekhi church complex, repurposed as a museum in the Soviet period - to accompany its 1938 retrospective exhibition of Niko Pirosmanashvili (1862-1918), marking the twentieth anniversary of the painter's death and forming part of the documented sequence of Pirosmani retrospectives held in Tbilisi in 1926, 1927, 1930, and 1938. Pirosmanashvili, a self-taught sign- and tavern-painter working in Tbilisi from the 1890s, was discovered by the city's avant-garde circle around Kirill Zdanevich only in 1912-1916 and died in poverty in 1918; his posthumous reputation as Georgia's foremost primitivist painter, now represented in the Georgian National Museum and internationally exhibited, was still being actively constructed at the time of this catalogue's publication. The booklet gathers four essays: a biographical study by Mamia Dudučava; a Russian-language account by the museum's editor, G. Bukhnikashvili, covering the painter's peasant origins in Mirzaani, his work as a railway conductor, and his failed sign-painting workshop; an excerpt from a longer piece on Pirosmani by the major Georgian poet Giorgi Leonidze (1899-1966); and, of particular significance, a first-person memoir by Lado Gudiashvili (1896-1980) recalling his own personal meeting with Pirosmanashvili, titled "A Meeting with Pirosman." Gudiashvili, one of the towering figures of twentieth-century Georgian painting, here writes not as illustrator but as eyewitness, making this a primary documentary source rather than secondary commentary. The appended catalogue lists roughly 110 exhibited paintings by title, support, medium, and dimensions, together with a full-page reproduction of "The Caretaker" (Dvornik) among the four inserted plates, providing a valuable exhibition-history record for provenance research on individual works. Printed in only 1,000 copies twenty years after the artist's death, the booklet represents one of the earliest waves of serious Pirosmani scholarship and is of interest to institutional and specialist collectors alike.