Date/Time
12/07/2022 - 09/10/2022
10:00 - 18:00

Location
B&M Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts and Music

Spyros Papaloukas (1892–1957) is a preeminent early 20^th century artist who made a major contribution to the development and renewal of Greek painting. He furthered and expanded the work of pioneering artists, such as Konstantinos Parthenis, Konstantinos Maleas, Georgios Bouzianis; alongside Nikolaos Lytras, Michalis Economou and Nikolaos Othonaios, he introduced innovative ways to represent nature.

Papaloukas’s oeuvre is characterised by a constant reflection and a two-way process of understanding the modern in the light of the Greek tradition and using elements of tradition in the interpretation of modern art.

Born in Desfina, Fokida (Phocis), he took his first painting lessons with a local panel painter and went on to study at the Athens School of Fine Arts; during that period, he met Fotis Kontoglou and Stratis Doukas, both of whom had a formative influence on him. His discovery of modern art during his stay in Paris (1917–1921) was pivotal in his evolution; he seems to have been influenced by the more conservative movements in European painting – the post-impressionism of Les Nabis and a mild version of fauvism.

After his Paris experience, Papaloukas spent one year on Mount Athos, alongside Stratis Doukas. This experience also proved formative for his creative development. He worked feverishly, painting landscapes, monasteries, shipyards and copying frescoes, panel paintings, manuscripts and miniature art, all of which he later used extensively in the decoration of the church of Evangelistria in Amfissa (1927–1932). He acknowledged the impact that Byzantine art had on him: ‘It gave me faith in everything I was still looking for. Up there on Athos, I clearly saw that, in all great periods, art is nothing but form and colour in response to a “form” … a set of aesthetic rules whereby each people and each period fulfil the needs of life.’

The places where he lived and worked – Aegina, Lesvos, Salamis, Parnassos, Paros, Hydra – can be grouped in distinct series in terms of style, which reflect the contemporary demands of each period under an overarching principle, that ‘painting must elicit emotion by means of its materials, rather than its subject.’ Papaloukas also created portraits, nudes, still life paintings, and became involved in set design and book illustration.

The Theocharakis Foundation exhibition attempts to trace Papaloukas’s creative evolution, marked by his sustained and systematic search for his own personal painting style attested by the large number of drawings and preliminary studies he did before beginning the final painting. Visitors are invited to imagine being in the painter’s studio and watching the successive stages in the development of a painting, while observing the artist’s style evolve, from the faint landscapes of Aegina to the highly structured compositions of Mount Athos and from the vivid colours and shapes of his Salamina paintings to the abstract views of Paros and the understated yet dazzling pointillist paintings of his last period. The originality of his voice is also amply demonstrated in the maquettes for his monumental sacred and secular designs, in which his respect for tradition and the role each space serves is always evident.

Finally, the series of paintings and drawings on view at the exhibition (many of which go on public display for the first time), as well as a selection of personal statements by Papaloukas, highlight the artist’s European outlook and are a testament to his contribution to the development of modern Greek painting.

The B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts and Music has organised and hosted a number of solo and group exhibitions featuring the work of Spyros Papaloukas: Spyros Papaloukas: B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts & Music Collection, 2007, B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts and Music, curated by Takis Mavrotas; Spyros Papaloukas: B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts & Music Collection, 2008, Sismanoglio Megaro, Istanbul, curated by Takis Mavrotas; Spyros Papaloukas: B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts & Music Collection, 2008, Municipality of Thessaloniki Cultural Centre, curated by Takis Mavrotas; Spyros Papaloukas: Panel Paintings, Drawings, Models, B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts & Music Collection, 2009, B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation, curated by Chrysanthi Baltogianni; Spyros Papaloukas: Paintings 1915–1956 from the B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts & Music Collection, 2010, Municipal Gallery of Larissa – G.I. Katsigras Museum, curated by Takis Mavrotas; Spyros Papaloukas – An Ode to Greek Modernism, 2012, Municipal Gallery of Chania, curated by Peggy Kounenaki; Spyros Papaloukas – Synopsis, 2016, B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts and Music, curated by Takis Mavrotas; Modern Greek Landscape Painting from the 18th to the 21st Centuries. Vision, Experience and Reconstruction of Space, 2009, B. & M. Theocharakis Foundation for the Fine Arts & Music Collection, curated by Haris Kambouridis; Faces of Modernism: Painting in Bulgaria, Greece and Romania 1910-1940, 2009, National Museum of Art of Romania in Bucharest, curated by Mariana Vida, Irina Genova and Takis Mavrotas; It Happened in Athens, 2009, Melina Mercouri Cultural Centre, curated by Iris Kritikou; Depicting Transcendence: From Byzantine Tradition to Modern Art, 2013, Museum of Contemporary Art – Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation, Andros, curated by Nikos Zias; Spyros Papaloukas – Basil Theocharakis: Mount Athos, 2019, Kalamata Dance Megaron, curated by Takis Mavrotas.

Curation: Efthymia Georgiadou-Kountoura

Duration: July 12, 2022–October 16, 2022

Opening hours: Monday-Sunday,  10:00-18:00 hrs, Thursday, 10:00-20:00 hrs

General Admission: 7€, 4€

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