The Bank of Greece's Art Collection - 2

60 Years of the National Bank of Greece Cultural Foundation, Some of the art in their collection 

at the Benaki Museum, Pireos, Athens.

The bank's collection comprises more than 7,000 works of painting, printmaking, sculpture, drawings, illustrated books, tapestries, mosaics and ceramics. A fraction of it is displayed at the Benaki Museum. It spans the whole of the 20th century, giving us an overview of how Greek art developed in that period. In this second post we will feature their prints, lithographs, etchings. If you want to look at the first post go here

Zizi Makri, Chimneys, 1959, (block print)

Zizi Makri, Foundry in Budapest, 1961, (block print)

Vasso Katraki, WAITING 2, 1968, (lithograph)

To see more of Katraki's work go here and here

Nikos Nikolaou, Hydra, 1933, (block print)

Yannis Moralis, Yannis Kefalinos, 1935, (block print)

Panayiotis Tetsis, View of a Seraside Village, 1961, (aquatint)

Zizi Makri, Landscape with Mountain Village, 1953

Nikos Kadjikyriakos-Ghika, Still Life, 1954, (lithograph)

Louisa Montesantu, Cage with Parrots, 1987, (block print)

Dimitris Tiniakos, Andros, 1952-54, (block print)

Lambros Orfanos, Birds, Paris, 1955, (etching)

Yannis Tsarouchis, Spring, 1978, (lithograph)

Yannis Moralis, Seated Girl, 1935, (block print)

Yannis Moralis, Workers, Moissis Raphael and Giorgis Dimou Behind Him, 1933, (block print)

To see more of Moralis' work you can go here

Yannis Moralis, Faces, 1934, (block print)

 

Tassos (Anastasios Alevizos), Slaves, 1967, (block print)

A. Tassos - Juvenilia

This exhibition covered the work of eleven Greek artists who were influenced by the major events of the 20th century: WWII, the occupation of Greece by the Germans and the famine that ensued; the Civil War that followed the end of the war, and how it divided the nation; finally the seven years of the military dictatorship that brought so much suffering to the Greek people. 

In the exhibition we were shown how each artist's work developed and changed as they matured and how some moved on to abstraction. I will cover the work of one artist in each post.

A. Tassos - Juvenilia at the Benaki Museum, Pireos, Athens.

Tassos' work is militant art at its best. His engravings are characterised by the tender rendering of ordinary people, their toil and pain. Until the end of his life he remained committed to the struggle for a new society, just, democratic and socialist. He was politically affiliated to the Communist Party. During the occupation of Greece by the Germans he became a member of the United Panhellenic Organisation of Youth, and then the National liberation Front. During the 7-year military dictatorship if in Greece he self-exiled.

The inspiration for his work were the struggles of the people, the natural beauties of Greece and the everyday life of common people. 'I take all inspiration and impulse from the people and their struggles', he characteristically said.

At the Harbour, 1934, (woodcut on paper)

Every Morning, 1932, (woodcut)

Partisans, 1944, (woodcut on paper)

Peasant Women, 1956, (lithograph)

Noon, 1952, (woodcut on paper)

Fishermen (of Aegina), 1958, (colour woodcut on paper)

Hunger, 1943, (woodcut on paper)

looking closer

Civil War. The Women. The Dead. The Men. 1961. (woodcut on paper)

Looking at each individual painting.  Civil War. The Men. 1961. (woodcut on paper)

Apologies for the reflection. I tried ever so hard.

Looking at each individual painting. Civil War. The Dead. 1961. (woodcut on paper)

Looking at each individual painting. Civil War. The Women. 1961. (woodcut on paper)

In Memory of Che Guevara. The Archangel with the Machine Gun, 1968, (woodcut on paper)

To Liakos Iliopoulos, 1966, (ink-covered wooden plaque)

The Ladies of the Rebetika songs - The Lady of Kokkinia, 1970, (woodcut on paper)

The Organ Player, 1946, (woodcut)

To see more of his work you can go Here



 

Balthus - Wuthering Heights

Memories Steeped in Dreams: Lithographs, at the Basil and Elisa Goulandris Foundation Museum.

Ninety lithographs, engravings and ceramics from the collection of the Foundation, eight artists. Each post will cover one artist. This post is on Balthus' Wuthering Heights.

From 1933 to 1935, when he was in his early twenties, Balthus devoted himself to illustrating Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. He drew more than fifty studies in pencil depicting specific passages in the book. His fascination for this novel that he discovered at the age of fourteen incited him to draw comparisons between the story of Cathy and Heathcliff and his own relationship with his future wife Antoinette de Watteville, who was betrothed to another at the time. Some of these compositions would later inspire major paintings notably La Toilette de Cathy and Les Enfants Blanchard.

The success - tinged with scandal - of his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Pierre in 1934 would allow Balthus to see as early as 1935 eight of his illustrations published in the review Minoaure, spurred on by Teriade. Nevertheless, it was not until 1989 that the artist was finally able to present twelve of his drawings  transposed to lithographs beside extracts from the text by Bronte thanks to the Librarie Seguier.

Regarding his sketches, the artist said the following: 'I want to put in them many things, tenderness, childish longing, dreams, love, death, cruelty, crime, violence, cries of hatred, howls and tears.'

Again, as in the post on Picasso it was very difficult taking photographs due to the light in the gallery.

 

Circus - Fernand Leger

Memories Steeped in Dreams: Lithographs at the Basil and Elisa Goulandris Foundation Museum.

Ninety lithographs, engravings and ceramics from the collection of the Foundation, eight artists. Each post will cover one artist. In this post, Fernand Leger. 

When Leger got back to Paris in 1946 after having lived in New York for six years, he was contacted by Teriade who asked him to design a folio of lithographs illustrating a text of his choosing. The painter decided to dedicate his album to the circus world and chose to write the texts himself illustrating them with original lithographs. Thirty-four compositions in colour and twenty-nine in black and white were conceived for Circus to decorate the manuscript penned in a nimble and ample style, akin to Matisse's Jazz. The latter envisaged the written part as a complement to the image, serving to balance the whole, whereas Leger, whose talents as writer and orator were of a rare limpidity took advantage of this platform to render a literary and artistic homage to the circus.

It took Leger and Teriade four years to finish the printing of Circus, whose publication was entrusted to the Mourlot brothers in 1950. Leger and Teriade were so pleased with this first collaboration that they decided to undertake another project on the subject of cities. Leger's untimely death in 1955 left this volume in suspension.

At first Leger takes us on a journey to the land of ubiquitous circles astride a bicycle traversing the French countryside, where we cross paths with farmers, animals and machines.

Not until after this introduction can we finally enter the big top where the circles continue revolving around us, making us laugh with dizziness. 

The big parade heralds the finale, wherein trapeze artists, clowns, dancers and horses add the finishing touch to the show, urging the spectator to keep all five senses on alert.