We use cookies to make our site work properly, to personalize content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyze our traffic. We also share information about how you use our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Read the Cookies Policy.
Hatzikyriakos-Ghika Nikos (1906 - 1994)
Fruit Store “Apollo”, 1939
Oil on canvas, 55 x 46 cm
Donated by the artist
Inv. Number
Π.7317
On view
Main Building
Apollon Grocery Store” helps us understand Ghika’s post-cubist idiom. Carefully reading the painting, one realises that it depicts recognizable objects: a store, its name indicated by a sign. Underneath a white awning are seen the facade and the door. Fruit boxes are arrayed in front; there are various vegetables and plants. So, what is new about this painting? Well, that the artist fragments, refracts the surface — as if we were looking at a grocery store through the pieces of a broken mirror — and depicts a different subject in each piece, in a simple, decorative fashion. The painting thus becomes rather like a puzzle. Chatzikyriakos-Ghika loves vivid colours and multiform shapes, and, accordingly, his paintings convey an effect of elan vital and optimism.