Panourgias Thymios

He studied sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts with professor Yannis Pappas (1951-1956) and on Greek State scholarship went on to the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris (1960-1963) with Louis Leygue. He became professor of sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts during 1972-1998 and taught as visiting professor at the School of Fine Arts, Aristotelian University, Thessaloniki (1986-1987). He is among the founding members of the Centre of Visual Arts (1973) and the Association of Sculptors (1978), of which he also became chairman.

He had his first solo exhibition at the British Council (1969), followed by solo exhibitions in Greece and other countries and participation in group events, including the Alexandria Biennale (1965), in which he won the silver medal, the Sao Paulo Biennale (1969) and the Venice Biennale (1972).

Using stone, marble and metal, and focusing on the human figure, Thymios Panourgias fuses in his work folk and Archaic art elements with modern ideas. Cubist and abstract elements combine in works based on solid volumes, with an emphasis on simplification, stylisation, immobility and frontality. Solid volumes eventually acquired recesses and openings, suggestive of a natural landscape incorporating the figures, whereas later on the human presence gave way to abstract depictions of nature.