- Niko Pirosmani (Albertina exhibition catalogue)Our PickEdited by Bice Curiger
- Pirosmani: A Legend in Naïve ArtOur PickEdited by R. Barış Kıbrıs
- Naïve ArtOur PickBy Natalia Brodskaya
- Russian Art and the West: A Century of Dialogue in Painting, Architecture, and the Decorative ArtsBy Rosalind P. Blakesley and Susan E. Reid
- Russian Painted Shop Signs and Avant-garde ArtistsBy Alla Povelikhina and Yevgeny Kovtun
- The Aesthetics of Anarchy: Art and Ideology in the Early Russian Avant-GardeBy Nina Gourianova
Important Art by Niko Pirosmani
Feast in the Grape Pergola or Feast of Three Noblemen (1905)
This painting depicts three Georgian noblemen at a feast table, toasting goblets of wine and eating traditional dishes. In the foreground sits a dog, while in the background plentiful vines hang above the feast-goers. Painted in Pirosmani's usual neutral palette, the style features a flatness and lack of depth typical of the Naïve artist. The brushstrokes, particularly in the background, demonstrate how Pirosmani painted in a rapid and dynamic way in order to capture the simplicity of the everyday lives and traditions of the Georgian people.
Pirosmani's unique visual vocabulary and traditional subject matter, unconnected to the artistic trends taking place in Moscow and Paris, as well as his impoverished living conditions and local status, set him apart from other artists of this time. Paintings such as Feast in the Grape Pergola, caught the eye of the Russian avant-garde artist Mikhail Larionov, who became a steadfast champion of Pirosmani's, and both the subject matter and style can be seen as having informed Larionov's later works. The artist painted street scenes, such as A Stroll in a Provincial Town (c.1909), in a similar flat, non-perspectival manner to Pirosmani.
Signboard 'Cold, Cold Beer' (c.1910)
This work is characteristic of the signboards Pirosmani was commissioned to make for the local taverns in Tbilisi. It was painted on tin due to the metal's cheapness, but also because it could be hung outside in any weather. The sign's text translates to "Cold, Cold Beer;" a message illustrated by the two typically and identically dressed Georgian men at the table enjoying a jug. The tree in the background suggests that they are drinking outside.
The simplicity of signboards such as Cold, Cold Beer captured the imagination of Le Dantu and the Zdanevich brothers when they traveled to Tbilisi. The simple color palette was chosen as dark paints were easily obtainable and inexpensive, but the effect they created - the pictorial flatness, the simple outlines, and the boldness - found resonance with the vision and ideas of the developing avant-garde in Moscow. Art historians Alla Povelikhina and Yevgeny Kovtun have argued that the artist's signboards differed from those of contemporary Russian painters, writing, that "by comparison, Pirosmani is closest to Henri Rousseau, except that Pirosmani relied on the heritage of Georgian and Persian art."
Pirosmani was a main influence in using simple art scenes of everyday life to illustrate advertising concepts. The style would become widely seen in Russia shortly after the revolution of 1917.
Georgian Woman Wearing a Lechaki ()
The composition is simple, featuring a woman who takes up the whole canvas from top to bottom, and is set against an unknown landscape background. The materials are signature to those that Pirosmani used throughout his life: readily available paint colors and anything easily on hand as an improvised canvas, such as tablecloths from the taverns at which he was working.
This painting is another prime example of Pirosmani's depiction of everyday scenes in Georgian life.
It is one in a series of paintings illustrating women in traditional Georgian dress; it is set apart from the series by the inclusion of the bird on the dress lapel and the intricacy of the floral lace on Lechaki, with matching cuffs and neckline on the dress. The equation of women with nature was a common theme in both Georgian folklore and Pirosmani's paintings. This painting was previously in the collection of the Austrian author Stefan Zweig, who became familiar with the work of Pirosmani during a 1928 visit to Moscow. Zweig's late discovery of Pirosmani is a clear example of how the artist only really achieved widespread recognition posthumously. The writer was an enthusiast and keen collector of Primitivist art, and following his discovery of Pirosmani's work at an exhibition in the State Tretyakov Gallery described the artist as "the great Piro" and predicted his work would be a "true discovery for Europe."
Influences and Connections

- George Zaziashvili
- Dito Shevardnadze
- Ilya Zdanevich
- Mikhail Le Dantu
- Naïve Art
- Georgian folk art
- Mikhail Larionov
- Natalia Goncharova
- Marc Chagall
- Kazimir Malevich
- Lado Gudiashvili
- Kiril Zdanevich
- Rayonism
- Neo-Primitivism