Albanian Art – Shqipopedia | Encyclopedia Albanica

Nexhmedin Zajmi

Honolulu — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 01:01:13 +0000

Nexhmedin Zajmi (1916-1991) was born in Trebisht in the Dibra region. In 1931, he attended the American Vocational School in Tirana, where he studied agriculture and, later, art. He finished his schooling in 1938 and went on to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, where he graduated in 1943.After his return to Albania in 1944, he taught at the Jordan Misja Academy and at the Academy of Fine Arts (Instituti i Lartë i Arteve Figurative) until 1969. Though much of his painting falls well within the category of conformist socialist realism, he is also remembered for moving portraits such as Nëna labe (Mother from Laberia), 1955, and Malësorja (Highland Woman), 1947.

Robert Eslie

Spiro Xega

Honolulu — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 01:00:04 +0000

Spiro Xega (1876-1953), one of the early figures of Albanian painting, was born in Opar in the Korça region of southeastern Albania. He spent his early years in Turkey, where he learned to draw and paint, though without formal professional training. Back in Albania, he was a member of the guerrilla band of Çerçiz Topulli and later worked as a fuel and salt merchant in Korça. His earliest paintings, mostly on nationalist themes, date from before World War I. He is remembered in particular for his Çeta e Shahin Matrakut (Warrior Band of Shahin Matraku), 1930; and for his horseback painting of Skënderbeu (Scanderbeg), 1931.

Robert Eslie

Simon Rrota

Honolulu — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:58:48 +0000

Simon Rrota (1887-1961) was born in Shkodra and was educated by the Franciscans. He learned to draw and paint under Kolë Idromeno. He studied at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan until 1915 and later travelled in France. On his return to Albania, he worked as a photographer in Lushnja and then taught school in his native Shkodra until retirement. He is remembered for his paintings of town life in Shkodra, of which the best known are Te pusi i fshatit (At the Village Well), 1934, and Portë në Shkodër (Gate in Shkodra), 1936.

Robert Eslie

Vangjush Mio

Honolulu — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:57:23 +0000

Vangjush Mio (1891-1957) is regarded as the finest Albanian landscape painter of the twentieth century. He was born in Korça and moved with his brother to Bucharest, Romania, in 1908, where, in 1915, he studied at the national school of fine arts. He finished his training there in 1919. In the same year, he opened his first personal exhibition, in Bucharest and the following year in Korçan, probably the first exhibition of figurative art ever held in Albania. From 1920 to 1924, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and travelled widely in Italy in the 1920s. Mio was a great admirer of 19th and early 20th century Italian realist art and of impressionism. Back in Korça, the most refined and cultured town in Albania at the time, he founded a fine arts society and exhibited his works on numerous occasions, becoming one of the best-known Albanian painters of the period. From 1934, he also taught art at the French-language secondary school there. Over 400 of his paintings are preserved, both in museums and galleries in Tirana and Korça, in particular his home in Korça which now houses the Vangjush Mio Museum. He is remembered in particular for his landscape paintings: poplars glowing in the autumn sunlight beside the waters of Lake Ohrid and floodlit plains of Korça covered in snow.

Robert Eslie

Guri Madhi

Honolulu — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:55:09 +0000

Born in Korça, Guri Madhi (1921-1988) took part in the Second World War. From 1950-1956, he studied at the academy of arts in Leningrad, and worked for the ministry of culture on his return to Albania. In the wake of the 1966 purge (‘the struggle against bureaucracy’), Madhi was transferred to Gjirokastra to work at a military garrison for two years, but managed to return to Tirana in 1970. From then on, he was careful to ensure that his works conformed to communist party teachings. Guri Madhi taught art for many years at the Jordan Misja Academy and at the Academy of Fine Arts (Instituti i Lartë i Arteve Figurative) in Tirana, from which he retired in 1983 as one of the best-known painters of his generation. He died in Budapest.

Robert Eslie

Andrea Kushi

Honolulu — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:51:22 +0000

Andrea Kushi (1884-1959) was born in Shkodra and studied art in Belgrade from 1912 to 1914. In the 1920s, he taught school in Shkodra before moving to Tirana to set up the first art school there (1931-1937). Kushi lived in Korça from 1937 to 1943, where he was in close contact with the painters Vangjush Mio (1891-1957) and Foto Stamo (1916-1989), and in Elbasan from 1944 to 1947, when he moved back to Tirana. He is remembered for his portraits and landscape paintings. Well known among his works are the portraits Bariu me shkop (Shepherd with a Staff) and Portret vajze (Portrait of a Girl)

Robert Eslie

Zef Kolombi

Honolulu — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:48:00 +0000

Zef Kolombi (1907-1949) was born in Sarajevo of a father from Shkodra and a mother from Slovenia. His parents died when he was very young and he was raised in Shkodra by his grandmother. After a difficult youth, he got a state scholarship from minister Hilë Mosi to study at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 1929. He returned to Albania in 1933 and worked as an arts teacher at the Normal School (Shkolla Normale) in Elbasan. In 1941, he moved back to Shkodra, where he died at the age of 42. About 50 of his paintings and drawings, the earliest dating from 1926, are preserved today. Among them are portraits and tranquil landscape paintings, often infused with a touch of melancholy.

Robert Eslie

Sadik Kaceli

Honolulu — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:46:27 +0000

Sadik Kaceli (1914-2000) was born in Tirana of a large family from the nearby Dajti region. From 1929, he attended the American Vocational School, where he specialized in drawing. He acquired an initial knowledge of world art from the art books and magazines that he discovered at the new Herbert Library, the first public library in Albania, founded by Lady Carnarvon. Wishing to study art in France, he wrote a letter to French painter Henri Matisse (1869-1954), who replied to him on 12 April 1936, recommending that he contact art critic André Lhote (1885-1962) and study at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Paris. In September 1936, assisted financially by his brothers, Kaceli thus left for Paris and continued his training there until 1941. On his return to Tirana, he taught art at a secondary school and then, from 1946 until his retirement in 1973, at the Jordan Misja Academy. Sadik Kaceli was a realist painter though he was never willing or able to adapt his style completely to the prerequisites of socialist realism and was thus marginalized for many years during the dictatorship. He is remembered for both portraits and landscape paintings

Robert Eslie

Kolë Idromeno

Honolulu — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:28:36 +0000

Painter, photographer and architect Kolë Idromeno (1860-1939) is perhaps the best-known of the early figures of Albanian painting. He was born in Shkodra and began drawing and doing water colours at an early age (1871-1874). With the help of Pjetër Marubi, from whom he also learned the art of photography, he was able to travel to Venice in 1875 to attend the Academy of Fine Arts, but he did not survive the rigors of formal training and gave up after six months. He remained in Venice, though, and worked for a couple of years as the assistant to an established Venetian painter, returning to Albania in 1878. In 1883, he opened a photo studio with cameras imported from the Pathé company in France. In 1912, he became the first person in Albania to import moving picture equipment and to show films. In August of that year, he signed a contract with the Josef Stauber company in Austria to set up the country’s first, rudimentary public cinema. As a painter, Idromeno preferred urban subjects, such as in his Dasma shkodrane (Wedding in Shkodra), 1924, but also did portraits of intellectuals and nationalist figures. Particularly well-known is the portrait of his half-veiled Motra Tone (My Sister Tone), 1883. Landscapes and religious subjects also occur. His paintings were shown at international art exhibitions in Budapest (1898), Rome (1925), Bari (1931), Rome (1936) and New York (1939). Kolë Idromeno is also remembered as a sculptor and as an architect of public buildings in Shkodra.

Robert Eslie

Abdurrahim Buza

Honolulu — Fri, 12 Oct 2018 00:27:13 +0000

Abdurrahim Buza (1905-1986) was born in Skopje of a family from Gjakova in Kosovo. With the help of Bajram Curri, he was able to get a basic education in Shkodra and Tirana and then attend the Normal School (Shkolla Normale) in Elbasan (1923-1928). As a student there, he took an active part in the so-called Democratic Revolution of June 1924. He was subsequently able to study in Italy on an Albanian government scholarship. Together with sculptor Odhise Paskali, he attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Turin for a year, and then continued his training as a painter in Florence (1933). On his return to Albania, he taught art at a school in Tirana and from 1947 at the Jordan Misja Academy, where he remained until his retirement in 1966. Buza’s works were first exhibited at the national level in April 1945. They are characterized by bright colors and a certain peasant naivety. He dealt with a wide range of themes in his painting, from portraits to landscapes in Pogradec and Tirana, as well as historical, legendary and nationalist subjects. The spirit of his native Kosovo is reflected in many of the ca. 500 oil paintings and 10,000 drawings of his, which have been preserved.

Robert Eslie