Ibrahim Kodra

Ibrahim Shaban Likmetaj Kodra was born in 1918 in Ishem, a little village in Albania. He attended the Art School Odhise Paskali of Tirana and tank to a scholarship, in 1938 he moved to Milan to study at Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera. He learned very much from  Carrà, Carpi e Funi: they teached him painting and fresco at the academy. In 1942 he won another scholarship because he was considered the best student in Brera. The next year he graduated and he joined the Exhibit of young at Permanente of Milan. He opened his studio in Milan and he joined the group Oltre Guernica with whom he exposed his artworks in a famous collective exhibit in via Brera. In 1947 he met Paul Eluard and the next year Pablo Picasso. The two artists said very good things about him. The former said “Kodra is the primitive of a new society”, the latter “Your signature too is a work of art”. Kodra started exhibiting all over the world, reaching a very great success: New York, Tokyo, Palermo, Stuttgart. He joined the international collective of the University of Paris in 1953 and he exposed his sculptures with Picasso, Rouault, Dufy, Matisse e Modigliani in 1954 at Chiavari. His artworks are influenced by post-cubist artists and they are enriched thanks to the memory of his homeland, that’s to say a Near East rich in traditions, meeting of cultures on Mediterranean sea. His subjects are sons of the Harlequins by Picasso and they are part of shining compositions: brilliant tiles which recall Byzantine style. His artworks are in many museums and private collections, for example at the Museum of the Vatican. He died in 2006 in Milan and he was buried in Albania as he wanted.