Sunday, February 14, 2010

Greek painters

El Greco (1541 – April 7, 1614) was a painter, sculptor, and architect of the Spanish Renaissance. "El Greco" (The Greek) was a nickname, a reference to his Greek origin, and the artist normally signed his paintings with his full birth name in Greek letters, Δομήνικος Θεοτοκόπουλος (Doménikos Theotokópoulos).
El Greco was born in Crete, which was at that time part of the Republic of Venice, and the centre of Post-Byzantine art. He trained and became a master within that tradition before travelling at age 26 to Venice, as other Greek artists had done. In 1570 he moved to Rome, where he opened a workshop and executed a series of works. During his stay in Italy, El Greco enriched his style with elements of Mannerism and of the Venetian Renaissance. In 1577, he moved to Toledo, Spain, where he lived and worked until his death. In Toledo, El Greco received several major commissions and produced his best known paintings.
El Greco's dramatic and expressionistic style was met with puzzlement by his contemporaries but found appreciation in the 20th century. El Greco is regarded as a precursor of both Expressionism and Cubism, while his personality and works were a source of inspiration for poets and writers such as Rainer Maria Rilke and Nikos Kazantzakis. El Greco has been characterized by modern scholars as an artist so individual that he belongs to no conventional school. He is best known for tortuously elongated figures and often fantastic or phantasmagorical pigmentation, marrying Byzantine traditions with those of Western painting.


Antonio Vassilacchi, called Il Aliense (Αντώνιος Βασιλάκης) (1556-1629), was a Greek painter, who worked mostly in Venice and the Veneto.















Theophilos Hatzimihail (born ca. 1870, Vareia, near Mytilene, island of Lesbos, Greece; – died, Vareia, 22 March; 1934), known simply as Theophilos, was a major folk painter of Neo-Hellenic art. The main subject of his works are Greek characters and the illustration of Greek traditional folklife and history.






Demetrios Galanis (1880-1966) was an early twentieth century Greek artist and contemporary and friend of Picasso. In 1920, the year he completed his `Seated Nude', he exhibited alongside such major figures of modern art as Matisse and Braque, while from 1921 on he also exhibited alongside Juan Gris, Dufy, Chagall and Picasso.
By the early 1920s Galanis was famous in France and preparing for shows in Brussels, London, and New York. In 1920-21 he frequently exhibited in Paris and in 1922 his first one-man exhibition received the enthususiastic critical response that established his reputation. 'Seated Nude' was among the pictures exhibited, and in an introduction to the exhibition André Malraux described the artist's work as "having the power to stir emotions equivalent to that of Giotto."
This show established Galanis’ reputation as a painter and confirmed the favourable opinions already expressed on the quality of his work. Critics of his time paid much more attention to his figurative work than his landscapes, confirming the well-established view that Galanis’ first and foremost concern was his love for the human form.
Galanis received greater critical acclaim abroad in his lifetime than any other Greek modern artist of the early 20th century. The French state honoured him with the highest distinctions: full professor at the École des Beaux Arts in Paris and a life-long member of the Académie française.
Having moved to Paris in 1900, living close to Montmartre for fifty years in Rue Cortot, Galanis developed his artistic talent beyond painting. He was also known for his illustrative wood engravings in books, such as the Heritage Press edition of Sophocles' Oedipus the King and the Cresset Press edition of John Milton's Paradise Lost.
The most significant collection of Galanis' work can be found at the Teloglion Foundation at theAristotle University of Thessaloniki, though examples can also be found in London's Tate Gallery. Galanis' most famous Seated Nude sold at auction for $221,860 in May 2006.



Nikolaos Gyzis (Greek: Νικόλαος Γύζης, 1 March 1842 - 4 January 1901) is considered one of Greece's most important 19th-century painters. He is most famous for his work Eros and the Painter, his first genre painting. It was auctioned in May 2006 at Bonhams in London, being last exhibited in Greece in 1928. He is the major representative of the so-called "Munich School", the major 19th-century Greek art movement.

Nikiphoros Lytras (1832–1904) was a nineteenth century Greek painter born in Tinos, and trained in Athens at the School of Arts. In 1860 he won a scholarship to Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Munich. After completing these studies, he became a professor at the School of Arts in 1866, a position he held for the rest of his life. He remained faithful to the precepts and principles of the academaism of Munich, while paying greatest attention both to ethographic themes and portraiture. His most famous portrait was of the royal couple, Otto and Amalia, and his most wel-known landscape a depiction of the region of Lavrio.



Nikos Engonopoulos (Greek: Νίκος Εγγονόπουλος; October 21, 1907 – October 31, 1985) was a modern Greek painter and poet. He is one of the most important members of the Greek Generation of the '30s as well as a major representative of the surrealistic movement in Greece. His work as a writer also includes critique and essays.
Yiannis Moralis (Greek: Γιάννης Μόραλης) (23 April 1916 – 20 December 2009) was an important Greek visual artist and part of the so-called "Generation of the 30s".
Over the years, Moralis was also involved with creating theatrical set and costume designs for the Greek National Theatre and the Greek National Ballet; illustrating poetic works by Odysseas Elytis and Giorgos Seferis; and decorating architectural works such as the façade of the Athens Hilton, the Metro-Station "Panepistimiou" and the Athens Central Station.

Dimitris Mytaras is a Greek artist born in Chalkis in 1934 and is considered one of the important Greek painters of the 20th century.
His work is mainly inspired by the human figure, and a combination of naturalism and expressionism. From the 1960s onward, Mytaras moved in the direction of Critical Realism, while from 1975 an expressionistic approach became more and more marked in his output.
During the time of the Greek military junta of 1967-1974, Mytaras sought to comment critically on Greek life through a series of realistic works entitled Photographic Documents.
In later life he turned towards classical themes.
Mytaras was also selected to create one of the official posters for the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens.

Spyros Vassiliou (1902-1985) was a Greek painter, printmaker, illustrator, and stage designer. He became widely recognized for his work starting in the 1930s, when he received the Benaki Prize from the Athens Academy. The recipient of a Guggenheim Prize for Greece (in 1960), Spyros Vassiliou's works have been exhibited in galleries throughout Europe, in the United States, and Canada.




Marie Euphrosyne Spartali, later Stillman (10 March 1844 – 6 March 1927), was a British Pre-Raphaelite painter of Greek descent, arguably the greatest female artist of that movement. During a sixty-year career she produced over one hundred works, contributing regularly to galleries in Great Britain and the United States.










Yannis Tsarouchis (13 January 1910-1989) was a Greek painter.
Born in Piraeus, he studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1929-1935). He was also a student of Photios Kontoglou, who introduced him to Byzantine iconography, while he also studied popular architecture and dressing customs. Together with Dimitris Pikionis, Kontoglou and Angeliki Hatzimichali he led the movement for the introduction of Greek tradition in painting.
From 1935 to 1936 he visited Istanbul, Paris and Italy. He came in contact with the Renaissance art and Impressionism. He discovered the works of Theophilos Hatzimihail and met influential artists such as Henri Matisse and Alberto Giacometti.

Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas (in Greek Νίκος Χατζηκυριάκος – Γκίκας ) (February 26, 1906 – September 3, 1994) was a leading Greek painter, sculptor, engraver, iconographer, writer and academic. He was a founding member of the Association of Greek Art Critics, AICA-Hellas, International Association of Art Critics.
He studied ancient and Byzantine art as well as folk art due to his adoration for the Greek landscape. During his youth he was exposed in Paris to the avant-garde European artistic trends and he gained recognition as the leading Greek cubist artist.
His aim was to focus on the harmony and purity of Greek art and to deconstruct the Greek landscape and intense natural light into simple geometric shapes and interlocking planes.
His works are featured in the National Gallery (Athens), the Musee d’ Art Moderne in Paris, the Tate Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of New York and in private collections worldwide.

Christos Kapralos (Greek: Χρήστος Καπράλος, 1909 - 1993) was a Greek artist of the 20th century. He was born in Panaitolto in the municipality of Thesties
He studied drawing at a school with the help of the Agrinian Papastratou Bros. and continued studied writing at Paris at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and at Académie Colarossi, he had a student named Oumbertos Argyros, his professor was Marcel Gimond. He returned to Greece and in Panaitolio (or Panetolio) in 1945 and in 1946, he moved ot Athens and visited Aigina.
Christos Kapralos in that connection with the bas-relief for the memory of the Battle of Pindus during World War II, where he worked between 1940 and 1945 stuck in his village which was once known as Moustafouli, Aitoloakarnania. After the wor with the frieze, march along with the rhapsody of history of modern Hellenism.
In May 1964 in the Zygos gallery, A. Tasos presented hil large black and white wooden arts with the mind from the Greek Civil War, one memory for all lost friends of his younger days. From his works forgets the civil war which was set in 1961] and copleted his works "The men".
His works were one of the anthropocentrical with the inspiration of Ancient Greek art and mythology. His works which he presented with many expos not only in Greece, also in the rest of the world. In Agrinio in 1996, functioned the only sculpture exposition in the Kapralos Art Screen which is founded in the wall of the Papastrateias Public Library. His works which includes 60 small works with great length, he loved art from the beginning of his career from 1930 untilk 1956. Between those works separate the work Figoura 1951, Melpomene (1940-1945), Kazuo Kikuchi, a Japanese student from Paris (1937) and Christopher (1940-1945).
Bronze and marble works which he displayed in Athens from 1960 until 1993 in the front of the building, it lets in Athens in the factory at 7 Tripou Street in Koukaki.
In the island of Aigina where he visited in the summer months featurees a factory by the name Christos Kapralos Museum which is one of the six factories, and exposed all the works which were in display in Aigina every summer from 1963 until 1993.

Konstantinos Parthenis (Greek: Κωνσταντίνος Παρθένης) (10 May 1878 – 25 July 1967) was a distinguished Greek painter. Parthenis broke with the Greek academic tradition of the 19th century and introduced modern elements together with traditional themes, like the figure of Christ, in his art.

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