Alexander Bandzeladze

Alexandre Bandzeladze (; 27 February 1927 – 13 June 1992) was a Georgian and Soviet modern artist who was notable as a painter, illustrator, and graphic artist. He was made an Honored Artist of Georgia (1965) and awarded the State Prize of Georgia (1993). Alexander Bandzeladze was born in Tulun, Siberia, to a Georgian father and Estonian mother. His family, after having been exiled to the Irkutsk District during the repressions in the 1920s, returned to Tbilisi in 1932.

In 1947, he enrolled in the Oil Painting Department of the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts under the tutorship of Sergo Kobuladze, Iosif Charlemagne, and Valentin Sherpilov. Expelled from the academy in 1949, he received his diploma as late as 1963, with the help of Apolon Kutateladze. At that time, Bandzeladze actively collaborated with the editorial teams of various Georgian magazines.

He authored milestone works for the development of Georgian book graphic design, such as Arsenas Leksi (Arsena's Poem) (1957) and Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli (1960). In 1978–1988, he painted the murals at the Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God in . In the 1950s, Alexandre Bandzeladze led an innovative movement in Georgia and the Soviet Union in general and pioneered the process of rejuvenating the language of visual arts.

During his creative quest, and as a result of taking in the traditions of modernist European oil painting, he developed his own artistic system characterized by striking individualism. After Davit Kakabadze, Bandzeladze was one of the first to have returned abstract art into Georgia's artistic context.