mixed media on paper, signed and dated '95
framed and under glass

Note: Jacob Jugashvili (aka Dzhugashvili) is a great-grandson of Josef Stalin. He arrived in Scotland in September 1994 with a £6,000 grant from the authorities in his native Georgia and enrolled on the three-year BA course in Fine Art, Drawing and Painting. He was taught by Glasgow School of Art stalwart James (Downie) Robertson, whose paintings are collected by royalty including Prince Philip. Like other students loved to listen to popular bands, like Massive Attack and Portishead, but he would rarely go out drinking after one particular night of excess. ‘I went a couple of times to nightclubs but didn’t like it at all - too noisy and everybody was drinking and getting sick,’ he said. ‘I got sick too once, right in the middle of Sauchiehall Street. It was awful and I’m still feeling shame about it.’ He recalled smoking cigarettes outside the front of the art school’s famous Mackintosh building after students were banned from lighting up in the studios and spoke of his sadness at the two devastating fires which have ravaged the architect’s masterwork, affectionately known as The Mack, and cast its future into doubt. He said: ‘Very often I walked through the corridors, inner stairs and studios of the Mack and it was very relaxing. It was sort of my personal alternative to a cigarette break. More than 20 years after he graduated in 1997, Mr Dzhugashvili, who now lives in Moscow with his wife Nino Lomkatsi and their nine-year-old daughter, Olga, said his years in Glasgow formed a lasting influence on him. Recalling his time in Glasgow, Mr Dzhugashvili, 45, now a successful painter whose work is sold by a top London gallery, admitted that he had preferred to keep his extraordinary political heritage a secret during his studies, revealing the truth only to a select few close friends. He said that people reacted ‘differently, always differently’ to his family background, adding: ‘Some curious. Some with hate. Some with great respect.’ ‘My friends didn’t care about my name, they cared about our friendship. As I was communicating with people of the same age as me there was only curiosity and it didn’t last long. Personality - that’s what matters not identity.’ He added: ‘At college I was always just Georgian Jacob and, in fact, by the end of my studies, I was Scottish Georgian Jacob.’