Ivan Kavaleridze

Ivan Kavaleridze (1887–1978) was a sculptor and director; he was an author of the first statues of Taras Shevchenko and Bolshevist politician Artem (one of the first Constructivism monuments in Europe); he was a director of several avant-garde historical films, and after the Socialism focus in the Soviet art he became a pioneer cameraman.

Soviet critics ranked Kavaleridze, the author of nine full-length films, together with such personalities as Dovzhenko, Pudovkin and Eisenstein. However, Kavaleridze still remains an outsider in Ukrainian culture.

He was born in Talaivka, Poltava region, in a Georgian-Ukrainian family. He studied at the Kyiv Art School, Saint Petersburg Academy of Arts, and in 1910-1911, he went to Paris to study at Naoum Aronson’s private studio.