Vera Pagava
Vera Pagava is a Georgian painter, engraver and draughtswoman who belongs to the Second School of Paris. Figurative at the beginning, her painting evolved in the early 1960s and took a more personal and demanding path, which led her to abstraction « experienced as a necessity », she says, and « as the absolute search for the pictorial transposition of light ». Having lived mainly in France, where she pursued her career both at the heart of, and on at the margins of, the art scene, Vera Pagava is currently benefiting from a major rediscovery movement.
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Born in Tiflis (now Tbilisi, Georgia), she was 16 when her family went into exile in France. Soon after, surrounded by the Georgian artistic community in Paris, she began studying painting, first at the École des arts et de la publicité, then in André Lhôte’s studio and at the École nationale des arts décoratifs, before joining Roger Bissière’s workshop at the Académie Ranson in 1932. In 1938, she became part of the “Témoignage” group initiated by Marcel Michaud, and in 1943 she met Jeanne Bucher, who invited her to exhibit alongside Dora Maar the following year. This first show marked the beginning of her long collaboration with the gallery, where she exhibited regularly until the 1960s.
International recognition came in 1958, when she created a monumental painting for the Holy See Pavilion at the Brussels World’s Fair. In 1966, she represented France at the 33rd Venice Biennale, where an entire room was dedicated to her watercolors. In the 1970s, she worked closely with Galerie Darial, which organized numerous exhibitions of her work. A major touring retrospective followed in France (1982–1983), and in 1986–1987 she was commissioned to design the stained-glass windows and liturgical furnishings for the Church of Saint-Joseph in Dijon, the final project of her career.
In recent years, her work has been featured in major institutions, including the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (2022), Guggenheim Bilbao (2021–2022), Centre Pompidou – MNAM (2021), Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Lausanne (2021), Pushkin Museum, Moscow (2021), Musée Soulages, Rodez (2020), MAMC Saint-Étienne (2019), and the National Gallery of Georgia (2012).
In 2025, the Musée de Gajac (Villeneuve-sur-Lot) dedicated a solo exhibition to her work, while the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon is preparing a major retrospective. Since being represented by Galerie Poggi, Vera Pagava has been the subject of two solo exhibitions, including one at ARCO Madrid (2022), as well as a duo show with Anna-Eva Bergman (2021).
Works
![Vera Pagava, Ville ou lumière sur la ville, 1963, Oil on canvas, 100 x 89 cm, [SOLD]](https://galeriepoggi.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/b290842c6b84a912265e5843e234b491j-824x1024.jpg)
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Exhibitions at the Gallery
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The First Stone
October 13 - December 2, 2023
Vera Pagava, Paris – Tbilissi
19 Mar. - 23 Apr. 2022
Anna-Eva Bergman, Vera Pagava, The Horizon of Abstraction
4 May. - 12 Jun. 2021
