For a long time, Niko Pirosmani (1862-1918) was almost completely unknown outside of his native country of Georgia, but today he is considered the most prominent representative of na?ve painting, alongside Henri Rousseau. The son of a farming family was an autodidact. Without any sort of art training, he became a vagabond painter, traveling from village to village, painting portraits, still lifes, animals, and scenes from daily life for village pubs, exchanging pictures for food, wine, and a roof over his head. He remained destitute throughout his life. With their minimal, brilliant colors and visual vocabulary, his paintings are unique, and they played an important role for the Russian avant-garde and its early neo-primitive days. Even Pablo Picasso later dedicated an etching to him.To commemorate the one hundredth anniversary of Pirosmani's death, the first comprehensive compendium of his oeuvre will be published next year. This bibliophile's survey comes in a slipcase, and its two volumes are devoted to examining the life and impact of the Georgian artist, as well as the importance of his work to art history.
