Iakob Nikoladze (1876 Kutaisi - 1951 Tbilisi) – Georgian sculptor, artist, teacher. He studied at the Kutaisi classical gymnasium and at the Batumi professional school specializing in mechanics. Drawing skills helped him to enroll in the Stroganov Central School of Technical Drawing in Moscow (1892-94), then in the Odessa Mitrofan Borisovich Grekov Art School (1894-95, 1897-98) and finally, in the School of Fine Arts in Paris (1899-1901, 1904-1910). For more than a year (1906-07) he worked as an assistant to Auguste Rodin, whose attention he attracted with his sculpture The Wind (1905). He is the author of the state flag of the Georgian Democratic Republic (1918-21). After the establishment of the Bolshevik rule in Georgia (1921), on the advice of Noe Zhordania, the Chairman of the Government of the Georgian Democratic Republic, he refused to emigrate. In 1922 Nikoladze became the first teacher at the Faculty of Sculpture at the Tbilisi State Academy of Arts. Under the impression of Lenin's speech at a rally in Paris (1908), he created the sculpture Lenin during the Creation of Iskra (1947, begun in 1926). Works by Nikoladze: The Old Jew (1896); Salome (1906); Grieving Georgia (1913, a monument on the grave of Ilia Chavchavadze); Noe Zhordania (1919); Rosa Luxemburg (1922, lost); Akaki Tsereteli (1924); Kamo (1924); high reliefs on the facade of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism (1937); Chakhrukhadze (1948, the last completed work) and others. Nikoladze was twice (1946, 1948) laureate of the Stalin Prize of the first degree and other awards. The author left many works unfinished: Ubisi Fresco, Neli Chikovani, Queen Tamar and others.