Kobuladze, Sergei

Born Jan. 25 (Feb. 7), 1909, in Akhaltsikhe. Soviet graphic artist, stage designer, and painter. People’s Artist of the Georgian SSR (1958); corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the USSR (1958). Became a member of the CPSU in 1947.

From 1925 to 1930, Kobuladze studied under E. E. Lansere, I. A. Sharleman’, and G. Gabashvili at the Tbilisi Academy of Arts. He became an instructor at the academy in 1938, receiving a professorship there in 1957. Kobuladze’s graphic works which are distinguished by romantic and heroic imagery and by the sculptural treatment of forms, include illustrations for Rustaveli’s poem The Man in the Panther’s Skin (gouache, 1935–37), for several of Shakespeare’s tragedies (gouache and charcoal, 1934–35), and for The Tale of Igor’s Campaign (gouache, 1939; published 1946). He designed sets for the staging of Glazunov’s ballet Raymonda (1945) at the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR and for the production of Mshvelidze’s opera The Legend of Tariel (1946; State Prize of the USSR, 1947) and Kiladze’s ballet Sinatle (1947; State Prize of the USSR, 1948) at the Z. P. Paliashvili Tbilisi Academic Theater of Opera and Ballet. Kobuladze is also a portraitist and landscape painter. He has been awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor and a medal.