View source for Dimitri Shevardnadze

{{Infobox  artist
| name             = {{nobold|დიმიტრი შევარდნაძე}} <br>Dimitri Shevardnadze
| image            = D. Shevardnadze. The 20-ies, 9 x 12.jpg
| image size       = 
| caption          = 
| birth_name       = 
| birth_date       = December 1, 1885
| birth_place      = Bakhvi, [[Guria]], [[Kutais Governorate]], [[Russian Empire]]
| death_date       = 1937
| death_place      = [[Tbilisi]], [[Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic|Georgian SSR]]
| nationality      = [[Georgians|Georgian]]
| field            = [[painting]]
| training         = 
| works            = 
}}
'''Dimitri Shevardnadze''' ({{lang-ka|დიმიტრი შევარდნაძე}}) (December 1, 1885 – 1937) was a [[Georgia (country)|Georgian]] painter, art collector and intellectual [[Great Purges|purged]] during [[Joseph Stalin]]'s repressions.

==Life==
Born in Bakhvi, a small village in the western Georgian province of [[Guria]], then part of the [[Russian Empire]], he was educated at the art academies of [[St Petersburg]] and [[Munich]]. Upon his return to Georgia, in 1916 he founded and led the Association of Georgian Artists. He helped also to establish the  National Gallery of Fine Arts (1920) and the [[Tbilisi State Academy of Arts]] (1922). He decorated several opera and theatre performances, and movies, and designed an official logo of the [[Tbilisi State University]]. 

In 1917 together with Kirill and [[Ilia Zdanevich]], he organized the exhibition of [[Niko Pirosmani|Niko Pirosmanashvili]] in his apartment.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Shevardnadze Dimitri |url=https://art.gov.ge/en/portfolio/shevardnadze-dimitri/ |access-date=2024-02-29 |language=en-US}}</ref>
[[File:Dimitri Shevardnadze self-portrait.jpg|thumb|Self-portrait of Shevardnadze]]

==Revolt==
In 1937 the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Communist]] chief of Georgia, [[Lavrentiy Beria]], intended to destroy the medieval [[Metekhi Church|Metekhi church]] in [[Tbilisi]], but met stubborn opposition from a group of Georgian intellectuals led by Dimitri Shevardnadze. Beria replied to their urges, that it would surely be enough to preserve a scale model of the church so that people could see it in a museum, and then told Shevardnadze privately that if he gave up his efforts to save the church he would be appointed director of the future museum. The artist refused and was eventually imprisoned and executed. The church was preserved, however.<ref>Ami Knight (1993), ''Beria: Stalin’s First Lieutenant'', page 84. [[Princeton University Press]], {{ISBN|0-691-01093-5}}</ref>

==Family==
Georgian politician [[Eduard Shevardnadze]] was a son of a cousin of Dmitri Shevardnadze.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.georgians.ru/news.asp?idnews=38509 |title=ШЕВАРДНАДЗЕ: БЕРИЯ УБИЛ СТАЛИНА И РАССТРЕЛЯЛ ДВОЮРОДНОГО БРАТА МОЕГО ОТЦА |date=22 March 2010 |accessdate=September 27, 2011 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120406194934/http://www.georgians.ru/news.asp?idnews=38509 |archivedate=April 6, 2012 }}</ref>

==References==
{{reflist}}

== External links ==
{{commons category|Dimitri Shevardnadze}}
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20070928075522/http://www.arabuligallery.ge/dimitri_shevardnadze/index.php D. Shevardnadze]
*[http://www.photomuseum.org.ge/shevardnadze/index_en.htm The Georgian Museum of Photography]

{{ACArt}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shevardnadze, Dimitri}}
[[Category:1885 births]]
[[Category:1937 deaths]]
[[Category:Great Purge victims from Georgia (country)]]
[[Category:People from Guria]]
[[Category:People from Kutais Governorate]]
[[Category:20th-century painters from Georgia (country)]]
[[Category:Tbilisi State Academy of Arts]]