Pandi Mele, an Albanian painter and graphic artist of the 20th-21st centuries, was a Merited Painter born in Hoçisht, Korça. He completed the “Jordan Misja” Artistic High School in Tirana and pursued graphic studies at the Academy of Arts “Repin” in Leningrad, Russia (1959-1961), before graduating from the Higher Institute of Arts in Tirana in 1964. Mele worked as a graphic modeler and editorial manager at the “Naim Frashëri” publishing house in Tirana and served as a lecturer and head of the graphics studio at the Higher Institute of Arts from 1975 to 1994. He was the first Albanian graphic artist to apply graphic cycles based on literary works and Albanian legends, producing significant pieces such as the cycle “Motive Migjeniane” (“Migjenian Motifs”) in 1964, the graphic series “Shtypi i Partisë” (“The Press of the Party”) in 1984, and the cycle “Rozafa” in 1999. Through his work, Pandi Mele greatly influenced the realization of contemporary graphic art in both technique and conception, creating posters, emblems, postage stamps, and various illustrations. He was included in “The Grove Dictionary of Art,” published by Macmillan Publishers Limited in New York in 2000. Pandi Mele passed away in Boston, USA, in 2015. (In the photo: Mele’s work entitled “Ju flet Tirane.”)(“Tirana is speaking to you) (November 1944)”, 1976, oil on canvas.)
Text: Ylli Drishti, 100 years of Tirana in painting; 1920 – 2020 , “Mediaprint”, Tirana, 2020, page 34.
Photo: © Ylli Drishti
Graphic processing: AHCF
