Guri Madhi

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Guri Madhi (born May 15, 1921 in Korça ; † June 1988 in Budapest / Hungary ) was an Albanian painter and actor .

Live and act

Madhi was born in Korça on May 15, 1921 . Not much is known of the early years of his life. He went to school in Korça with a break because of the Second World War . During the war he had joined the communist partisans and fought against the Italian and German occupation. After the war he was able to finish high school in his hometown. In 1950 he traveled to the Soviet Union to study . He studied at the Art Academy of the USSR in Leningrad , where he received his diploma in 1956. He then returned to Albania, where he accepted a position as an inspector in the Ministry of Culture in Tirana .

In 1961 he became a lecturer at the National Academy of Fine Arts (then name Instituti i Lartë i Arteve Figurative ). In 1966 there was a cleansing operation in Albania ( fight against the bureaucracy ) in the course of which Madhi was expelled from the ruling communist PPSH party in 1967 and sent to Gjirokastra . There he had to work in a barracks for two years. He was only able to return to Tirana in 1970. For many years he taught at the "Jordan Misja" art school. He retired in 1983 and was one of the most famous painters of his generation at the time.

Guri Madhi was also active as a theater actor in Korça for three years. He took on a leading role in the drama "Under the Chestnut Trees of Prague" by Konstantin Michailowitsch Simonow and in "The Miser" by Molière .

He died in Budapest in June 1988 under still unexplained circumstances. Madhi had traveled to Budapest unaccompanied (the regime did not allow it) for a thyroid operation. His family only learned, and without further explanation, that he had been found dead.

Guri Madhi was the only Albanian artist who had been expelled from the PPSH party and who was later honored as Painter of the People (Piktor i Popullit) in 1976 .

Works

Guri Madhi painted very heroic depictions of Albanian past and present, especially in his earlier periods. He had received many specifications and orders from the government in order to depict socialist realism . In the last years of his life he has moved to a freer way of painting. His oeuvre from 1955 to 1988 includes around 400 paintings.

Art critics see three periods in his artistic life:

His diploma thesis from 1956 Bajram Curri at the Dragobia Cave depicts the national hero Bajram Curri in the typical style of Russian Impressionism . This painting was placed in the office of the Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha , an avid supporter of great historical paintings and the Impressionist style. Today the work is in the Guri Madhi Gallery in Korça.

His painting entitled The Meeting of 81 Parties in Moscow, 1960 , one of the most important paintings of Albanian socialist realism, is also worth mentioning because of its origin . In large dimensions of 265 by 210 cm, it depicts the dispute between the Communist Party of Albania PPSH and the other communist leaders and parties at a conference in Moscow in 1960. On the one hand, a larger than life, powerful Enver Hoxha with the functionaries of his party and that of the Communist Party of China, who at the time also distanced themselves from Moscow. And on the other side Khrushchev , Brezhnev , Ulbricht and other communist leaders, who turn away with horror and are hit by the oratorical claps of a Hoxha. The painting was commissioned by the Central Committee of the PPSH in 1973 on the occasion of the thirtieth anniversary of the liberation of Albania and the inauguration of the new building of the National Art Gallery . Madhi's completed work was presented to a Central Committee commission in November 1974. This decided that the figure of Enver Hoxha did not come across as powerful enough, and gave the painter Zef Shoshi the order to rework Enver in the painting of Madhi, which was done. In 1978 Albania broke with China. Madhi then received the order to remove the Chinese delegation from the picture. The artist covered this with paint. In 1981 Albania's deputy prime minister Mehmet Shehu was found dead. He could be seen in the painting at Enver Hoxha's side. Madhi was again commissioned to rework the picture, but this time he declined, as such a step would completely destroy the composition and devalue the painting. As a result, this work was withdrawn from the market and no longer shown to the public. Nowadays it is located in the National Art Gallery in Tirana.

Although Guri came from Korça, he dedicated part of his work to the topic of Kosovo . His diploma thesis was already related to this part of Europe. When he returned to Albania from his studies, he continued to grapple with this topic, visited the Tropoja area on the border with Kosovo and implemented it in a picturesque way (the borders with Yugoslavia had been closed since 1948). There are many portraits of Kosovars in their national costumes. In 1978 he worked as an artist in Kosovo for two weeks, and many graphics were published in the local press at the time. Together with Kujtim Buzën , he opened an exhibition in 1979 entitled Through historical sites in Kosovo . In 1981 there was another joint exhibition in Pristina , Ferizaj and Prizren . Many of his works can be found in Kosovar galleries.

For years, Madhi had to submit to the requirements of the regime. He made to order and had to retouch and paint over his own pictures of naked women himself. Towards the end of his life, Guri Madhi freed himself more and more from these strict rules. Even if he could no longer exhibit his pictures, he was at least able to pursue his artistic activity.

In 2011, 23 years after Madhi's death, during a routine cleaning of his paintings, his children found some hidden forbidden paintings that the dictatorship would have punished with imprisonment. The artist had made pictures on both sides of the canvas. The hidden side showed art forbidden by the regime, while the side visible to the viewer conformed to the rules.

Appreciation

Guri Madhi was awarded the title Painter of the People (Piktor i Popullit) in 1976.

A well-known art gallery in Korça bears his name and is home to many of his works.

Web links

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Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Eralda Kenaj: Piktura murale, pengu i Guri Madhit. In: Zemtra Shqiptare. October 2, 2008, accessed November 13, 2014 (Albanian, interview with Pandi Madhi, son of the painter).
  2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original dated August 10, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Article from Panorama newspaper  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.panorama.com.al
personal data
SURNAME Madhi, Guri
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Albanian painter and actor
DATE OF BIRTH May 15, 1921
PLACE OF BIRTH Korça
DATE OF DEATH June 1988
Place of death Budapest