Akhvlediani, Elena

Born Apr. 5 (18), 1901, in Telav. Soviet painter, illustrator, theater designer, People’s Artist of the Georgian SSR (1960). Studied at the Tbilisi Academy of Arts under G. I. Gabashvili (1922) and in Italy and Paris (1922–27).

E. D. Akhvlediani is a master of landscape painting—she has done numerous views of Tbilisi (including the old city) and Kutaisi (a series entitled “New Construction in Georgia”), a Czechoslovakian series (1959), and others. She did the illustrations for works by E. Ninoshvili, I. Chav-chavadze, H. Longfellow (1930’s), and Vazha Pshavela (1951) among others. She designed the sets for a number of films and more than 60 stage productions, among them more than 25 at the K. A. Mardzhanishvili Theater in Tbilisi (Three Fat Men, 1931; Madame San-Zhen, 1940; The Mistress of the Inn, 1952; Much Ado About Nothing, 1963, and others), for The Masked Ball (1956) at the T. G. Shevchenko theater of opera and ballet in Kiev, and for Mother (1957) at the S. M. Kirov Theater of Opera and Ballet in Leningrad. E. D. Akhvlediani has been decorated with two orders.