Background
Abakelia’s father, Grigol Abakelia, a chief prosecuting officer for the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, and uncle, Ioseb Abakelia, a leading Georgian tuberculosis specialist, were shot during Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge in 1938.
Abakelia’s father, Grigol Abakelia, a chief prosecuting officer for the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, and uncle, Ioseb Abakelia, a leading Georgian tuberculosis specialist, were shot during Joseph Stalin’s Great Purge in 1938.
She was granted the title of Honored Artist of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1942. She had one son with Kaladze, sculptor Gulda Kaladze. Born in Khoni, Imereti (then part of Kutaisi Governorate, Russian Empire), Tamar Abakelia graduated from Tbilisi State Academy of Arts in 1929 and taught there beginning in 1938.
Among Abakelia’s works were graphic illustrations for Nikolay Tikhonov, Shota Rustaveli, David of Sasun, Vazha-Pshavela as well as stage decorations for the Rustaveli and Marjanishvili theaters and costume designs for the films Arsena (1937), Giorgi Saakadze (1942), and David Guramishvili (1945).
Noted for the dynamism of composition and artistically rounded forms, Abakelia was responsible for much of the progress of Soviet Georgian sculpture. Abakelia died in Tbilisi in 1953 and was buried there, at the Didube Pantheon.
She was married to a Socialist poet and playwright Karlo Kaladze (1907–1988). She sculptured friezes on the Museum of Marxism-Leninism in Tbilisi, depicting the various phases of socialist construction in Georgia (1936-1937).
