84 years ago, the master of Albanian painting, Kolë Idromeno, passed away.

“This emblematic figure, who paved the way for the development of modern Albanian visual art,” writes Shkodër Regional Directorate of Cultural Heritage in an online publication, in honor of Kolë Idromeno.

Appreciated as the founder of Albanian realistic painting, Kolë Idromeno is also known as an architect, city planner, photographer, set designer, guide, musician and composer. He holds the title “People’s Painter”.

He was the first to produce cinematographic shows in Albania, in 1919. In 1883, he produced the painting “Motra Tone” /Our Sister/, which is the first important realistic work in Albanian painting of the Albanian Renaissance period.

Kolë Idromeno comes from a Çam family that came from Parga in Greece and settled in Shkodër. He took his first art lessons in Pietro Marubbi’s studio, which brought him into contact with the newest medium of the time, the photography. When he was 16 in 1875, he went to Venice where he spent a short period of study at the Academy of Fine Arts and then at the studio of a Venetian artist. After this experience, in 1878 he returned to Shkodër where he showed his interests and talents in several fields. He became known for the architectural projects of a number of public and private buildings in Shkodër such as Kafja e Madhe /Grand Café/, the National Bank, several houses on the two main streets of the city. The architecture he proposed brought some western features opposite to the oriental architecture that had penetrated over the centuries.

Idromeno’s photography fund counts some 1300 negatives in glass that are in the Center for Albanian Studies in Tirana, and about 100 ones in the “Marubi” Museum in Shkodër.

/a.p./