Lameras Lazaros

He came from the island of Tinos. His early studies were with Thomas Thomopoulos at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1932-1938). On an Academy of Athens scholarship, he continued at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris with Jean Boucher, winning the first prize in 1939. The outbreak of World War I forced him to interrupt his studies and return to Greece. He was founding member of the avant-garde group “Akraioi” [Extremists], led by Alekos Kontopoulos, established in 1949. In 1953, his Monument to the Unknown Political Prisoner was awarded at an international competition and was subsequently on show at the Tate Gallery, London. In 1956, he was elected regular member of the International Institute of Letters and Arts and in 1957 received the first prize in sculpture by the Municipality of Athens. In 1960-1987, he was professor at the Department of Plastic, School of Architecture, National Technical University of Athens. In 1969, he published a study entitled “Πλαστική” (Plastic) and in 1975 the “Χωροθετικό διάγραμμα γλυπτών έργων Δήμου Αθηναίων Νεωτέρας Ελλάδος” (Location Chart Of Modern Greek Sculptures of the Municipality of Athens). He was also awarded the Commander of the Phoenix medal of the Hellenic Republic.

His exhibition activity was prolific, beginning with group exhibitions. In 1933, he exhibited with “Omada Techni” and then with “Eleftheroi Kallitechnai” [Free Artists] (1937-1939). He also took part in Panhellenic exhibitions, the Sao Paulo Biennale (1955, 1961) and the Venice Biennale (1960) as well as in the exhibition “Metamorphoses of the Modern” at the National Gallery (1992). In 1979, a solo exhibition of his work entitled “Touch – Art – Child” was mounted at the National Gallery for the benefit of deaf-mute children.

A sculptor who comfortably moved between traditional art and contemporary currents, Lazaros Lameras revealed through his non-figurative sculptures his taste for experimentation with avant garde trends as early as 1932; between 1945-1948 he created his first abstract compositions. In his figurative works, which he never entirely abandoned, he was mainly interested in the structural characteristics of the composition, avoiding narrative elements, and using typical Archaic plastic elements. From around 1958, his involvement with abstraction led him to plant-like works, in which verticality and motion play a major part. From 1960, he produced works for blind adults and children, which produce sound and combine movement with sculpture and painting. He also made heroa and monuments.