He studied sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1924-1930) with Thomas Thomopoulos. During his studies, he collaborated with architects and painters. From 1930 until the German Occupation, he worked as an architect at the Architecture Department, Ministry of Education, where he designed and constructed school complexes and churches. During a visit to Paris in 1937, he discovered the work of Charles Despiau. In 1949, on scholarship from the French government, he stayed in Paris for a year, working at Marcel Gimond’s workshop; during 1953-1954, he went to Italy on Greek State scholarship to study bronze casting, Etruscan art and the work of great masters, such as Michelangelo, Andrea Pisano, Donatello, Giacomo Manzu and Arnaldo Pomodoro.
In 1936, his first solo exhibition was held at the Stratigopoulos Gallery, followed by solo exhibitions in Greece and other countries and contributions to group and international exhibitions, including Panhellenic exhibitions, the Venice Biennale (1940, 1956, 1964, 1993, 1995) and the Sao Paulo Biennale (1957), Paris Salons as well as the exhibitions of the Association of Greek Artists and groups “Techni” [Art], “Stathmi” [Spirit Level], “Armos” [Junction] and “Tomi” [Section] as well as the “Group for Communication and Education in Art,” of which he was member.
Especially interested in the integration of sculpture with the environment, he repeatedly collaborated with architects and was awarded in architectural contests and also for works erected or designed for public sites. Among other awards, he received the first award for the Monument for the Women Heroes at Zalongo (1954-1960) in collaboration with the architect Patroclos Karantinos, for the sculpture at the entrance to the Thessaloniki International Fair (1966) and the Monument of the Fallen of the Municipality of Nikaia; also for his designs for the Omonoia Square new layout (1958-1960) in collaboration with the architect K. Bitsios, Klafthmonos Square (1981) and the National Resistance Monument at Gorgopotamos (1986) in collaboration with the architect A. Tombazis, which did not materialise.
A bold and imaginative artist, he began from a realistic depiction of human figures in plaster, marble, stone and bronze, before progressively advancing towards stylisation and abstraction. Since around 1960, he has switched to abstraction, creating constructivist metal works. His materials have progressively expanded to embrace various combinations of nickel, glass, Plexiglas, stainless metal, lenses, springs, nails, pipes, umbrellas, and beams. He also introduced the void into his compositions. Moreover, water, sound and movement all contribute to the overall effect of his works.
He studied sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1952-1957) in the Michalis Tombros workshop. In 1959 he went to Paris on a Greek state scholarship, continuing his studies there until 1962 at the Ecole des Beaux Arts under Marcel Gimond and Rene Collamarini. He also learned the use of metal at the Academie du Feu and attended seminars concerned with the urban environment at Camelot and Bodiansky’s architectural workshop. In order to broaden his artistic education he travelled to many European countries, Japan and then the USA, where in 1972 he taught Sculpture as a visiting professor at California State University at Hayward. In 1974 he settled permanently in Greece and in 1980 was elected Professor of the Plastic Arts at the Architectural School of the National Technical University, a position he held until 1998.
In 1961 he exhibited for the first time at the Salon des Realites Nouvelles in the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris and the following year at the Salon de la Jeune Sculpture held at the Rodin Museum; he was to repeatedly exhibit his works at these Salons. His active participation in important group and international shows also continued with appearances, among others, at the Sao Paulo and Alexandria Biennales in 1963, the Youth Biennale in Paris in 1965, where he received the Rodin Prize, the III International Exhibition of Contemporary Sculpture at the Rodin Museum in 1966, the Brussels Europalia in 1982, the Sculpture Symposium at the Olympic Park in Seoul in 1988, the “Metamorphoses of the Modern” exhibition presented at the National Gallery of Athens in 1992, and the Salon of Montrouge in France in 1997, where he also received an award. He has also had numerous solo exhibitions in Greece and abroad, the first at the Centre Culturel National, in Aix-en-Provence in 1965. In 1984 a retrospective of his work was presented at the National Gallery.
In 1983 he constructed a set/environment for Euripides’ “Phoenissae” at the ancient theater at Epidaurus. His compositions also ornament banks, hotels and private residences.
The artist’s earliest compositions, made of steel or bronze, were experiments connected to equilibrium and hearken back to Dadaist or Surrealist models. Gradually he added iron, stone, marble, glass, plexiglass, wood, rope, cloth, and rubber to the materials he employed, and also made use of water, fire and sand. At the same time, the function of his work changed. The base was gradually done away with and the compositions broken into parts. An endeavor was also made for a more immediate and freer form of expression, making use of various kinds of performances, with a particular focus placed on audience participation.
A sculptor whose interests and quests are also conducted on a theoretical level, he has published many texts in newspapers and periodicals, and is the author of several books, such a “Ένας γλύπτης στην αγορά” (Athens 1981), “Στίγματα πορείας” (Athens 1984), “Ίχνη” (Athens 1988), “Ένας γλύπτης στον αέρα” (Athens 1989), “Ανα-Κατάληψη” (Athens 1992).
He first studied painting at the School of Arts with Nikiforos Lytras and sculpture with Georgios Vroutos; he went on to S. Eberle’s workshop and the Munich Academy, where he attended composition classes. He visited and studied museums in Florence, Rome and Naples. Returning to Greece in 1900, he established a workshop; in 1910, he had courses at K. Konstantinidis’s workshop. In January 1912, he was appointed professor at the School of Arts and remained in this post throughout his life. His contribution to the preservation of Yannoulis Chalepas’s works was substantial: He visited the island of Tinos in 1922, leading a Ministry of Education team, in order to cast in plaster the works of Chalepas’s latest period. In 1930, he was elected regular member of the Academy of Athens.
His exhibition activity includes solo and group exhibitions, including events at the Parnassos Hall and exhibitions by the Greek Society of Artists, as well as the Venice Biennale (1934); a tribute to his work was held during the 1948 Panhellenic exhibition.
His apprenticeship with Georgios Vroutos accounts for the neoclassicist qualities in his work; moreover – even in his earliest works – the evident preference to mythological and allegorical subjects suggests his affinity with neo-idealist and symbolist trends, with which he had come into contact during his studies in Munich. Thomopoulos, however, is not limited to these, as his oeuvre is informed by an eclectic attitude. Thus, romantic qualities can also be felt, such as his endeavour to capture passion, or his flowing outlines, originating in Rodin, along with realistic qualities, mainly in his busts. His greatest innovation was his coloured sculptures, which he introduced in the 1900’s.
He was descended from a family of Cretan nobles who had settled on Corfu, as he himself most likely did as well. On Corfu the church of Ayia Triada, which belonged to his family and was built, according to an inscription in the narthex, in 1680, has survived. Of the icons that ornament the church some bear the signature Spyridon Tzangarolas and are dated 1685 and others the signature Stephanos Tzangarolas with the date 1688. Most likely these are one and the same person who before he became a monk used his secular name. In 1700 he was ordained a priest. His activity extends to 1710 according to the date on the “Presentation of the Virgin Mary”, his last dated work. In addition to the icons in the church of Ayia Triada, he also did icons from the Monastery of Sisia and the church of the Evangelistria at Kastro in Cephalonia, while works of his can also be found in the Benaki Museum, the Loverdos collection, the Metropolitan Megaron of Argostoli, the Corfu Municipal Gallery and elsewhere. In his work he was originally influenced by Cretan painting but later adopted western models.
He studied sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts with Yannis Pappas (1962-1967) and theatre set design as well as interior design with Vassilis Vassiliadis. On Greek government scholarship, he concurrently studied folk art in northern Greece. He also studied painting at the University of Fresno, California (1967-1969), where he taught sculpture for a period of time. In 1970, he moved to Los Angeles, where he worked as set designer for the theatre, cinema and television.
Hs work has been presented in solo exhibitions in Greece and other countries; in 1990, a retrospective exhibition of his work was held at Zygos Gallery in Athens. He has also participated in group shows, including the exhibition “Los Angeles Artists” at the Los Angeles Museum (1971), the Sacramento Museum and San Francisco Museum Annual Exhibitions (1972), Panhellenic exhibitions in Athens, the Barcelona Biennale (1975) and the Romania Biennale (1985), the “World Miniature Sculpture” Exhibition in Budapest (1987) and “Modern Greek Sculpture” (Paris, 1992).
Starting with abstraction and abstract expressionism, Sotos Alexiou sought in his painting the illusionist depiction of volumes and three-dimensionality. This approach also applies in his sculpture, combining minimalist and constructivist influences. He has also been involved with happenings and collaborated with architects and urban planners in art gallery interior design.
He received his early instruction in sculpture from the Armenian sculptor Papazian and in drawing from Vassilios Ithakissios. In 1919, he found himself in Paris, studying at the Academie Julian; in October of the same year, he was admitted at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts but quit only two months later to return to the Academie Julian. There, he studied with Paul Landowski and Henri Bouchard for two years. In 1921, during his participation in the Salon d’Automne, he met Antoine Bourdelle, who took him in the Academie Grande Chaumiere. He studied there for four years and, thanks to the mediation of his teacher, received in 1923 a 40,000 French franc scholarship from Helena Venizelou, enabling him to continue to pursue his studies, without however graduating, as he left the school in 1925. During the same year, he met Charles Despiau. In spring 1940, he permanently returned to Athens. At the beginning of the German Occupation, he was Dimitris Pikionis’s assistant at the Department of Free Drawing for a short period of time; in 1959, he became Professor at the Athenian Technological Institute and in 1961 was elected regular professor of the Second Sculpture Workshop at the Athens School of Fine Arts. In 1967, he was elected an associate member of the sculpture department at the French Academie des Beaux Arts. In 1939, he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur of the French Republic and in 1947 the Palmes Academiques by the French Ministry of Education.
His work has been exhibited in solo and major group exhibitions in Greece and around the world, including the Salon d’Automne, the Salon des Independants in France, Panhellenic exhibitions, as well as the Venice Biennale in 1950 and the Alexandria Biennale in 1961.
His acquaintance with Rodin’s work and his apprenticeship with Bourdelle both played a decisive role in shaping Apartis’s personal voice. The clear plastic volumes, the clarity of outline, the solid structure as well as the pervading spirit of the revival of classical tradition, specifically of Greek Archaic sculpture, all testify to Bourdelle’s influence, all the more evident during Apartis’s apprenticeship with the French master. Whether fragment, bust or full length, the human figure was the Greek sculptor’s main subject. His struggle to confine himself to the essential, to eliminate details, the austerity, clarity, realistic inclination and architectural structure are all characteristic traits of his oeuvre.
His aptitude for art manifested itself at a very early age. That being the case, by 1918 he had already enrolled in the Night Art School of Corfu, where for two years he took drawing lessons. After a period of commercial activity, he entered the Athens School of Fine Arts in 1937 where until 1939 he studied sculpture under Thomas Thomopoulos, Kostas Dimitriadis and Michalis Tombros.
His artistic career commenced with figurative works which included busts and full-figure statues, nudes primarily. After World War II, and particularly after 1950, he turned toward more abstract forms, staying in an anthropocentric framework at first, but in the end moving on to complete abstraction.
Even in his earliest absract works the endeavor to limit the volume while developing the figure in space is apparent, sometimes stressing the vertical and other times the horizontal. Until 1960 he created his compositions using iron rods welded together, and though these works are based on the principles of Constructivism, they are closer to Expressionism. A short while later, after changing from iron to bronze and setting the rods in a vertical arrangement, he would create works which resembled objects corroded by time, giving the impression a disaster had occurred. Sticking to the same style, the arrangement was later changed to the horizontal and even later to the diagonal, suggesting a feeling of flight through space.
After a period given over to deep reflection and inertia, he would then leave behind purely sculptural depiction and turn to a conceptual approach to the problems that occupied him. The environment / installation called “Five Rooms”, which in 1976 he presented in Paris and Athens, expresses this turn and the artist’ s existential anguish with great exactitude. This is an environment whice combines objects, images, sounds and lighting, and consists of five differing spaces, themselves thematic entities. In each room a philosophical question is put forth, while various symbols refer to the realization of the relativity of things. In 1982 he presented “Cave”, another environment / installation, this time constructed of newspapers which covered the wall in combination with a cinematic projection and various sounds, through which he would express his existential anxieties in yet another way.
He continued his quests using environments and installations, but he then began to combine these with a return to a more plastic rendering. His environments called “Ladders”, which where presented for the first time in 1978, originally made of wood but later bronze, as well as isolated compositions with stairs of various sizes, constitute signs of ascent and endeavor and further suggest an outlet through knowledge. In 1985 steel ladders 20 meters high were erected in Palaio Faliro.
The various stages the artist’s work went through were presented in a number of exhibitions, beginning with appearances in Panhellenics. In 1955 his first solo exhibition was held in Athens with works done in bronze to be followed by various other events organized both within Greece and abroad. He also took part in important group and international exhibitions, such as the Venice Biennale, in 1956 and 1968, the Sao Paolo and Alexandria Biennales in 1957, repeated appearances at the Salon de la Jeune Sculpture in Paris and finally at the Europalia in Brussels in 1982.
He studied with Michalis Tombros at the Athens School of Fine Arts during 1956-1960. On scholarship from the University of Athens, he continued his studies with Rene Collamarini and Ossip Zadkine in the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, visiting museums and galleries in his spare time.
His exhibition activity includes solo exhibitions and many contributions to group events in Greece and other countries, including “Greek Painters and Sculptors in Paris” (“Peintres et Sculpteurs Grecs de Paris”) in the Museum of Modern Art (Paris, 1962), the Second Panhellenic Exhibition of Young Artists (1962), in which he received the first prize in sculpture, Panhellenic exhibitions, the Sao Paulo Biennale (1969), the Barcelona Biennale (1975) and the Budapest Biennale of Small Sculpture (1971).
He earned several distinctions in competitions for public sculpture projects and in 1974 received the first prizes for sculpture of the Ministry of the Presidency and the Municipality of Thessaloniki.
Working in wood, marble, plaster, clay, aluminium, concrete, iron, bronze and polyester resins, Armakolas creates compositions in which the main subject – the human body, particularly the female one – rendered in great precision, is sometimes combined with geometric and abstract patterns, indeterminate forms or pieces of cloth, or presented in a fragmentary manner, torn by coarse, crude surfaces evoking a state of non-finito. His in the round or in relief works are characterized by intense contrasts and the poetic, dreamlike atmosphere they evoke.
He studied at the School of Arts during 1861-1864 with professor Georgios Fytalis, at whose workshop he was also employed at the same time for practice. In 1861, on scholarship from the Greek government, he went to Munich, where he took courses of painting with Wilhelm von Kaulbach and sculpture with Max von Widnmann. In 1871, he returned to Athens and established his own studio. He produced sections of the sculptural decoration in the Academy of Athens.
His work was presented in group exhibitions in Greece and abroad, including the Vienna International Exhibition (1875), Olympia (1875 and 1888) and the exhibitions for the benefit of the Red Cross at the Vassilios Melas residence (1881) and Parnassos, Athens (1885).
Ioannis Vitsaris belongs to a generation of sculptors who broke free of the restrictive precepts of neoclassicism and introduced realistic qualities into their works. During his studies, he pursued mythological subjects in the context of a classicistic spirit. From 1871, when he returned to Greece, he began to follow realistic directions, evident in both his choice of subject and approach. He mainly produced memorials and busts, reliefs, decorative items and sculptures of free inspiration, in which he combined idealistic and classicistic models with realistic traits. His works are distinguished for their meticulous detail and his outstanding ability to animate his figures.
Lili Arlioti studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts under D. Biskinis. She also studied music at the Athens Conservatory and then in Switzerland, where she also studied history of art. She is founding member of the artists’ group “Armos”.
Her subject matter is human-centric, incorporating echoes of both the early 20th-century expressionist experimentation and abstraction.
