Avramidis Joannis

He initially studied at the State Art School in Vatum, from 1937 to 1939. From 1939 to 1943 he lived with his family in Athens. In 1943 he settled in Vienna and studied at the Fine Arts Academy, painting under Robin Christian Andersen and sculpture under Franz Wotruba (1945-1956). In 1956 he won the State Prize of the Academy where in 1948 he was elected professor of sculpture. From 1966 to 1967 he taught at the Hamburg Fine Arts Academy. In 1998 he was appointed Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens.

1956 marked the beginning of the many exhibitions he would have; he has presented his work in solo, group and international exhibitions and repeatedly won prizes. Among these appearances were participations in the Venice Biennales of 1956 and 1962 and the Kassel Documenta of 1964 and 1977. In 1997 a retrospective exhibition of his sculpture, painting and drawings was organized at the National Gallery at the end of which the artist donated all of his work to the museum.

The human figure is the main focus of Avramidis’ sculpture, both in his early works done in stone and in his later ones in bronze, aluminum and materials of his own device. After a period of adapting his work to the style of his teacher Franz Wotruba, he proceeded on to a different rendering of form. Containing clear-cut elements from archaic sculpture, his figures are rendered schematically, in the form of a column or pillar, isolated or in a multiplicity of combinations, and they are characterized by the coexistence of vertical and horizontal subjects, the vertebrae-like arrangement and the rhythmical repetition of the elements which make up the volumes. Along with his sculpture, he has also been involved with painting and drawing, the latter employed either as a preliminary drawing for the sculpture, or developed as an autonomous work.