Vera Pagava Booth Sp22

VERA PAGAVA BOOTH SP22 Vera Pagava (Born in 1907 in Tbilisi, Georgia) em igrated to Paris in 1923 fo llo w in g h e r fa m ilie s e x ile fro m S o v ie t o c c u p ie d G e o rg ia . P a ris h a d a great influence to the artist who becam e deeply involved with the artistic milieu and avant-garde of the time. Pagava explored an active freeing of the self from form al representations in both life and w ork, breaking dow n the meanings of both her identity as a fem ale artist and her background from her hom etow n. As she neither liked to be defined as a fem ale nor G eorgian artist exclusively. This categorisation, m anifesting as figuration within her work, was left behind with a turning point from the early 1960‘s tow ards abstraction as a m eans to find this escape.:

Pagava was known for her experimentation within abstract motives, still lives, portrayals of nature, buildings and her ethereal representation of reality w h ich had a distinct softness in palette an d tou ch . W h ile the titles of her paintings evoked real places, their presence went beyond id e n tific a tio n , a c o n s ta n t o s c illa tio n b e tw e e n p u r e a b s tr a c tio n a n d represen tation . Th e artist gained intern ation al recogn ition follow ing a successful exhibition along side Dora M aar at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery in 1944 and later participation in the 33rd edition of the Venice B iennale in 1966 in w hich she represented France in a separate pavilion.:

Considering Pagava's earlier works alongside her later works, one witnesses how her practice became increasingly mysterious, as the surfaces and contours of her form s began to float freely from any obvious narrative or m eaning encom passed instead in subjacent light and colour. Our presentation will m ainly focus on paintings from the 70s alongside several earlier works. Tw o rare works from her still life period from 1935 and 1940, a landscape w ork from 1962 and a w ork from 1963 presenting the transitional stages of her practice.

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 [email protected] Vera Pagava Coupe et form es sur table ca 1935 Öl auf Leinwand Oil on canvas 54 x 80,5 cm | 21 1/4 x 31 2/3 in F r a m e d

Provenance: Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Paris, France

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 [email protected] V e r a P a g a v a La Pastèque 1940 Öl auf Leinwand Oil on canvas 24 x 35 cm | 9 1/2 x 13 3/4 in F r a m e d

Provenance: Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Paris, France

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 [email protected] V e r a P a g a v a Autom ne (Autum n) 1970 Öl auf Leinwand Oil on canvas 81 x 100 cm | 32 x 39 1/3 in Original artist fram e included

Provenance: Private Collection

Exhibition History:

2001: Musée Pierre Noël, retrospective of Vera Pagava, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges,1 France 1 1974 : 19th Salon de Montrouge. Montrouge, France. May 2 – June 3, 1974. 1 1972 : Galerie Darial, « W orks by Vera Pagava », Paris 7th. May-June, 1972. 1 1971 : 20th Salon d'Art Sacré et d'Expression Spirituelle, Crypt of the Montmartre Basilica. May 10 – Septem bre 30, 1971.1

Reproduced in the monography « Vera Pagava, vers l’indicible », ed. Area, 2010,1p.191

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 [email protected]

V e r a P a g a v a City 1962 Öl auf Leinwand Oil on canvas 45 x 64 cm | 17 3/4 x 25 1/4 in Fram e included

Provenance: Galerie Kornfeld, Berlin, Germany Chardin Gallery, Tbilisi, Georgia

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 [email protected] V e r a P a g a v a Untitled [Three forms] 1964 Öl auf Leinwand Oil on canvas 81 x 100 cm | 32 x 39 1/3 in Original artist fram e included

Provenance: Private Collection

Exhibition History:

2014: Galerie ArtisYou, Saint-Tropez, France. 1 1982 : Galerie Darial, « W orks by Vera Pagava », Paris 7th. June-Novem ber, 19821

1976: Galerie Darial, Vera Pagava solo show , rue de Beaune, Paris 7th 1 1972 : Galerie Darial, « W orks by Vera Pagava », Paris 7th. May-June, 1972. 1 Reproduced in the monography « Vera Pagava, vers l’indicible », ed. Area, p. 112.

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 [email protected] V e r a P a g a v a Envol 1977 Öl auf Leinwand Oil on canvas 73 x 92 cm | 28 3/4 x 36 1/4 in Original artist fram e included

Provenance: Private Collection

Exhibition History:

2019 : Art Paris Art Fair /Galerie Chauvy, Vera Pagava and Marta Pan, Grand Palais,Paris. April. 1 2018 – 2019 : Galerie Chauvy, « Vera Pagava », Paris. 1 1984: 38th Salon des Réalités Nouvelles, Grand Palais, Paris. November 6-25, 1984. 1 Reproduced in the monography « Vera Pagava, vers l’indicible », ed. Area, 2010, p1134.

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 [email protected] V e r a P a g a v a Pyram ide 1975 Öl auf Leinwand Oil on canvas 73 x 100 cm | 28 3/4 x 39 1/3 in Original artist fram e included

Provenance: Private Collection

Exhibition History:

2001: Musée Pierre Noël, retrospective of Vera Pagava, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges,1 France 1 1976: Galerie Darial, Vera Pagava solo show , rue de Beaune, Paris 7th 1 Reproduced in the monography « Vera Pagava, vers l’indicible », ed. Area, 2010,1p.192

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 [email protected]

V e r a P a g a v a Ville ou Lum iere sur La Ville 1963 Öl auf Leinwand Oil on canvas 100 x 89 cm | 39 1/3 x 35 in

NOT FOR SALE

Provenance: AC/VP collection, Paris, France

Exhibition History:

2016 – 2017 : Solo show « Celestial bodies », Galerie Le Minotaure, Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Galerie Alain Le Gaillard. Curated by Matthieu Poirier 1 2001: Musée Pierre Noël, retrospective of Vera Pagava, Saint-Dié-des-Vosges,1 France 1 1982 : Galerie Darial, « W orks by Vera Pagava », Paris 7th. June-Novem ber, 1982 1 1976: Galerie Darial, Vera Pagava solo show , rue de Beaune, Paris 7th 1 1972 : Galerie Darial, « W orks by Vera Pagava », Paris 7th. May-June, 1972. 1 Reproduced in the monography « Vera Pagava, vers l’indicible », ed. Area, 2010,1p.90

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 [email protected] V e r a P a g a v a Untitled 1982 Öl auf Leinwand Oil on canvas 60 x 73 cm | 23 2/3 x 28 3/4 in Original artist fram e included

Provenance: AC/VP collection, Paris, France

Exhibition History:

2016 – 2017 : Solo show « Celestial bodies », Galerie Le Minotaure, Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Galerie Alain Le Gaillard. Curated by Matthieu Poirier1

1982 : Galerie Darial, « W orks by Vera Pagava », Paris 7th. June-Novem ber, 1982 1 Reproduced in the monography « Vera Pagava, vers l’indicible », ed. Area, 2010,1p.196

Provenance: AC/VP collection, Paris, France

Exhibition History:

2016 – 2017 : Solo show « Celestial bodies », Galerie Le Minotaure, Galerie Jeanne Bucher Jaeger, Galerie Alain Le Gaillard. Curated by Matthieu Poirier1

1982 : Galerie Darial, « W orks by Vera Pagava », Paris 7th. June-Novem ber, 1982 1 Reproduced in the monography « Vera Pagava, vers l’indicible », ed. Area, 2010,1p.196

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 [email protected] V e r a P a g a v a Rencontre 1972 Lithographie Lithograph 74 x 55 cm | 29 1/4 x 21 2/3 in Ed.1/125 Unframed made on the occasion of first ever Pagava exhibtiion at Galerie Darial

Provenance: AC/VP collection, Paris, France

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 [email protected]

BIOGRAPHY

Vera Pagava focused her life on her work, searching for the essential in her art, Through her contact with the Georgian artists community in Paris, Pagava began the way to be the closest to her inner vision throughout an inventive journey of to study painting, at first at the Andre Lhote Studio and then at the School of Art form, light and colour. She worked in a variety of mediums thought out her career and Publicity. In 1931, she met Nicolas Wacker, a Russian artist, who later stayed consisting mostly of oil paintings, drawings (within a pointillism technique), gouache a close friend of Pagava‘s, who suggested her to enrol at the very elitist Académie on paper, watercolours, stained glass and textile design. She mostly experimented Ranson from 1931 to 1939, in Montparnasse. There, she studied in Roger Bissiere’s with abstract motives, still lives, portrayals of nature and a mysterious ethereal Studio, and met the people who would become her most faithful friends, such as representation of reality which had a distinct feminine softness in palette and touch. Jean Bertholle, Vieira Da Silva, Arpad Szenes, Etienne Martin, Roger Hilton, Jean Le Moal and Guidette Carbonell. During her time studying at the Académie Ranson Pagava‘s early works were particularly figurative, though through her immersion she participated in various group shows and collectives, such as the “Groupe in the Second School of Paris, her paintings evolved and became more personal Témoignage”, supported by Marcel Michaud who ran several galleries in Lyon at the and demanding in a way that took her to abstraction „ lived as a necessity „, she time. During World War II Pagava worked as a nurse in various hospitals helping the would say,“ for searching the absolute in the transposition of light into picture.“ From wounded and simultaneously created stained glass windows, textile designs, and the early 1930s to the 1980s, Vera Pagava deployed her pictorial universe first in her exquisite paintings. classic genres such as still life and landscape before turning to abstraction, that would occupy her for the rest of her life. This turning point, at the end of the 1950’s/ In 1944, Vera Pagava met the famous galerist Jeanne Bucher who presented her beginning of the 1960’s, showed the progressive elimination of the figurative within in her first major exhibition alongside another great female artist: Dora Maar. The her work, considering it as a “crutch” she no longer needed. Her liberated approach exhibition was an immediate success and was visited by many important artists such to geometry, which consisted of rounded and irregular edges, brought a new fluidity as Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. Following this event, the artist continued to to her oeuvre. The characteristics of her work became a kind of silent mystery of exhibit at Galerie Jeanne Bucher as well as other galleries, museums and art fairs forms whose surfaces and contours began to float freely from any obvious narrative and salons such as (Salon de Mai, Salon d’Art Sacré, Salon de Montrouge, Réalités or meaning. Her atmospheric compositions of subtle soft colours offered within them Nouvelles, etc.) in France and abroad (USA – at the Meltzer gallery in NYC in 1959 a sense of filtered subjacent light creating simple formal tensions free of anecdote for example, Sweden, Switzerland, Germany, Italy...). In 1958, she participated at and universal in their scope. the World Fair (International Exhibition) in Brussels, where she was commissioned by the Vatican to paint a large fresco for the pediment of their exhibition House Born in 1907 in Tbilisi Georgia, Vera Pagava is today considered one of the most (Pavillion). And in 1966, she represented France, in the French Pavillion, at the 33rd significant Georgian artists of her time. At a young age Pagava, born an only child edition of the Venice Biennale, where she had a separate pavilion devoted to her to wealthy and cultivated Georgian parents, was already enrolled from a young age watercolor works. in what was considered an “avant-garde” school in Georgia, named Lawandowski. Due to her father, Georges Pagava, falling ill the family left Georgia for some time first to Switzerland to seek treatment for him. This trip began the life long journey for Pagava abroad. Soon after being in Switzerland the family moved for some time to Berlin where Pagava and her family met many artists and intellectuals also in exile. Fallowing the fall of the Georgian government at the invasion of the Red Army in 1921, Pagava‘s family remained abroad fleeing Soviet annexation and settled in Paris, France in 1923 when she was 16 years old. BIOGRAPHY

Starting from 1972, Vera Pagava became the leading artist of Galerie Darial (in She spent a quiet life surrounded by friends and family, friends from both the art Paris, 7th) represented by the galerist and Pagava‘s friend: Thamar Tsouladze world and the Georgian community. She lived in Montrouge, with Vano, her life Tarassachvili. The gallery principally exhibited contemporary artists among them, companion (she was very quiet about their relationship), whom she met in the 1930’s a group of female artists. At the end of the 1970’s, female artists were still poorly in Paris. Vano was an erudite, an international law professor who started to make represented in museums and still less considered as male artists were. In 1978, paintings and drawings joining Vera’s life and artistic community. His work was Vera Pagava was filmed by the feminist and activist filmmaker Carole Roussopoulos exhibited in art galleries in France and Europe. He passed away in 1979, which was for the episode of a series on female artists (Point d’émergence : Vera Pagava, 1978). one of the hardest events of her life. They were inseparable all their adult life and enjoyed together beauty and art; they would go to the theatre, to lectures, ballets, In the 1980’s, Vera Pagava was weakened by many difficulties, and the death of exhibitions and collected many objects and ancient books from flea markets which her life companion, the painter Ivane Enoukidze, called “Vano”. In 1982 and 1983 they would study and use as a means to nourish their art. a retrospective exhibition of her works were presented at the Museum of Fine Arts in Dijon (Donation Granville), the Museum of Beauvais, the Saint-Denis Museum in Nowadays most of Vera Pagava’s works are kept in Paris at the Darial Gallery founded Reims and the Museum of Fine Arts in Troyes. She also worked on several public by “AC / VP – Association Culturelle Vera Pagava” since 1991. Her works are in commissions, most prominently a series of stained-glass windows and furniture major private and public collections including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, Fonds which was created in 1986 for the church of Saint-Joseph in Dijon. After a series Régional d‘Art Contemporain (FRAC) in d‘Ile-de-France and the National Museum of of hospitalizations, Vera Pagava passed away on the 25th of March, 1988. She is Georgia in Tbilisi amongst others. exhumed in Leuville-sur- Orge, France.

Pegava was known for having a thirst for knowledge and was a very curious person. She read a lot of philosophy, history, biographies, art studies and poetry and was very interested in antiquity, specifically the beginning of Italian Renaissance. She spoke French, German, Russian, English and Georgian. She was a very centred, meditative, quiet and known to be a very free woman, without any concern about genders, and her position as a female. She defined herself as a painter, a Georgian, and a woman but not as a female artist, she despised categorizations, which seems to be one of the reason that lead her to abstraction, that freed her from formal representation. She grew up within a very enlightened and progressive family (in 1919, women had the right to vote in Georgia). 1996 Viera da Silva and Arpad Szenes' house, Hyèvre-le- Chatel, France

VERA PAGAVA 1987 Vera Pagava Paintings, Musée de Pontoise, Pontoise, France 1907- 1988 Born in Tiflis, Georgia 1986 Galerie Gum m ersons, Stockholm, Sweden 1921 The Red Arm y invades Georgia 1982 – 1983 Vera Pagava, Journey of a Painter, 32 – 82, Musée des 1923 The Pagava fam ily goes into exile in France and settles in Beaux-Arts de Dijon, Musée Départemental de l'Oise, Montrouge Beauvais, Musée Saint-Denis, Reims, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Troyes, Salon de Montrouge, France Education 1972 – 1996 Galerie Darial, Paris, France 1923 School of Art and Publicity 1972 Vera Pagava, Draw ings and Paintings, Galerie Scribe, 1929 André Lhote Studio Montauban, France

1932 Académ ie Ranson, Paris, France 1970 Vera Pagava, Draw ings, Galerie Jacob, Paris, France

1940 Qualifies with a nursing diplom a and treats the war 1968 Château de Ratilly, Yonne, France wounded 1966 33rd B ie n n a le o f V e n is e , A r o o m is d e d ic a te d to V e r a Selected exhibitions Pagava's watercolors, French, Pavilion, Venise

2016-2017 Vera Pagava, celestial bodies, Galerie Jeanne Bucher 1965 Paris: Under the roofs of Paris, Chez Granville, France Jaeger, Galerie Le Minotaure and Galerie Alain Le Gaillard, Paris, France 1963 Exhibition of a selection of watercolors, Chez Granville, Paris: Sous les toits de Paris, France 2012 National Gallery Dimitri Chevardnadze of Georgia, Tbilisi, Georgia 1960 Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris, France

2005 Vera Pagava, 1907-1988, Galerie Bernard Bouche, Paris, 1959 Paintings Vera Pagava, Galerie Meltzer, New-York, France USA

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 galerie@ galeriekornfeld.com 1958 Universal Exhibition of Brussels, Vatican pavillon, Belgium 1982 Dijon, Direction Régionale des Télécomm unications, mural painting 1957 Sw itzerland: Sm all form ats, Libraire du Grand Chêne, Lausanne, Sw itzerland 1987 Dijon, stained glass and liturgical furniture of the Saint-Joseph Church 1956 Paris: First Exhibition– Vera Pagava, Galerie Alex Maguy, France Vera Pagava, Paris, Am t fur Kunst, Berlin, Collections Germany National Contemporary Art Center (CNAC), France 1955 Galerie Parnass, Wuppertal, Germany Fonds Régional d'Art Contem porain (F R A C ) d 'Ile - d e - 1954 Recent works by Vera Pagava, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, France, France Paris, France Museum of Modern Art of Paris (M A M ), P a r is , F r a n c e 1953 Brussels: Vera Pagava, Paintings and Drawings, Galerie La Licorne, France National Museum of Modern Art (M N A M ), C e n tr e Pom pidou, Paris, France 1951 Vera Pagava Paintings, Galerie Jeanne Bucher, Paris, France Museum of Fine Arts of Dijon-Donation Granville, Dijon, France 1944 First exhibition at the Jeanne Bucher Gallery (with Dora Maar) Museum of Gajac, V ille n e u v e - s u r - L o t, F r a n c e

Public Com m issions Museum of Grenoble, Grenoble, France

1936 Paris city, School of rue de l'Ave-Maria, mural painting Museum Pierre Noël de Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, S a in t- Dié-des-Vosges, France 1937 Paris city, School of rue de Ménilmontant, mural painting National Gallery Dimitri Shevardnadze, N a tio n a l 1950 Poitiers, reception hall of the Grand Hôtel de France, Museum of Georgia, Tbilisi, Georgia mural painting Museum Unterlinden in Colmar, France 1958 Brussels, Universal and International exposition, mural painting 7 x 7 m for the Church of the Holy See

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 galerie@ galeriekornfeld.com General Publications

BERTRAND DORLEAC, Laurence, Histoire de l’art: Paris 1940 – 1944, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 1986

DESCARGUES, Pierre, et al. Vera Pagava, vers l’indicible, Paris, Area, Descartes & cie, 2010

HARAMBOURG, Lydia, L’Ecole de Paris, 1945-1965, dictionnaire des peintres, Neuchâtel, éditions Ides et Calendes, 1993

LASSAIGN E, Jacques, „Trois expériences“, Panoram a des Arts 1947 , Paris, Aimery Som ogy Editeur, 1948

PIGUET, Philippe, „Vera Pagava“, Encyclopedie Universalis, Paris, Encyclopedie Universalis SA, 1988

GALERIEKORNFELD Fasanenstr. 26 D-10719 Berlin Tel +49(0)30 889 225 890 Fax +49(0)30 889 225 899 galerie@ galeriekornfeld.com