Zurab Tsereteli
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Zurab Tsereteli (born January 4, 1934) (Georgian: ზურაბ კონსტანტინეს ძე წერეთელი) (Russian: ŗуrab Konstantinovich Церетели) is a Georgian-Russian painter, sculptor, and architect.
Tsereteli was born in Tbilisi and graduated from the Tbilisi Academy of Arts, but soon moved to Moscow. Among his Soviet-era works is a children's resort in Sochi, completed in 1986. His wife was Princess Andronikashvili, from a noble Georgian family claiming paternal descent from the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos I Komnenos.
He has served as President of the Russian Academy of Arts since 1997.
In March 2014, he signed a letter of support for Russian President Vladimir Putin's position on Russia's military intervention in Ukraine.
Since the late 1950s, the sculptor worked at the Institute of History, Archeology, and Ethnography of the Academy of Sciences of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. He also served as a senior craftsman in the design workshop of the Art Foundation of the Georgian Art Fund and as head of the mural art department of the Union of Artists of Georgia
Since the late 1960s, he began actively working in mural art, creating sculptures, murals, and other artworks. In 1980, Tsereteli was appointed Chief Artist of the Moscow Olympic Games
He was elected a full member of the Soviet Academy of Arts in 1988 and served as President of the Russian Academy of Arts from 1997 until his death
In 1992, Tsereteli became Chairman of the International Fund for Support to UNESCO in Moscow, and four years later, he was appointed a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador
Tsereteli has produced thousands of works of art in painting, sculpture, and mural art (such as murals, mosaics, and paintings). His artwork has spread beyond Russia and Georgia, including to Belarus, Brazil, Britain, Spain, Italy, Lithuania, the United States, Uruguay, France, Japan, and Ukraine
In 1999, Tsereteli founded the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, the first state museum in Russia specializing in 20th and 21st-century art
The most famous and well-known monumental works of sculptor Zurab Tserete include
The "Friendship of Peoples" Monument
Erected in 1983 in Moscow to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Georgia's accession to Russia, it is one of Tserete's most famous early works
The "Good Triumphs Over Evil" Monument
Erected in 1990 in front of the United Nations building in New York, it symbolizes the end of the Cold War
The Victory Monument on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow
Erected in 1995 as part of the memorial complex in Moscow, it stands 141.8 meters tall
The statue of Saint George
Located at the base of the Victory Monument, it is one of the most prominent symbols in Tsereti's work
"The Birth of the New Man
Erected in 1995 in Seville, Spain, it stands 45 meters tall. A miniature version of it is located in Paris
The statue of Peter the Great
Erected in 1997 by the Moscow government on an artificial island at the confluence of the Moscow River and the Vodotvodny Canal, it stands 98 meters tall
Source: Interfax