He initially studied at the State Art School in Vatum, from 1937 to 1939. From 1939 to 1943 he lived with his family in Athens. In 1943 he settled in Vienna and studied at the Fine Arts Academy, painting under Robin Christian Andersen and sculpture under Franz Wotruba (1945-1956). In 1956 he won the State Prize of the Academy where in 1948 he was elected professor of sculpture. From 1966 to 1967 he taught at the Hamburg Fine Arts Academy. In 1998 he was appointed Corresponding Member of the Academy of Athens.

1956 marked the beginning of the many exhibitions he would have; he has presented his work in solo, group and international exhibitions and repeatedly won prizes. Among these appearances were participations in the Venice Biennales of 1956 and 1962 and the Kassel Documenta of 1964 and 1977. In 1997 a retrospective exhibition of his sculpture, painting and drawings was organized at the National Gallery at the end of which the artist donated all of his work to the museum.

The human figure is the main focus of Avramidis’ sculpture, both in his early works done in stone and in his later ones in bronze, aluminum and materials of his own device. After a period of adapting his work to the style of his teacher Franz Wotruba, he proceeded on to a different rendering of form. Containing clear-cut elements from archaic sculpture, his figures are rendered schematically, in the form of a column or pillar, isolated or in a multiplicity of combinations, and they are characterized by the coexistence of vertical and horizontal subjects, the vertebrae-like arrangement and the rhythmical repetition of the elements which make up the volumes. Along with his sculpture, he has also been involved with painting and drawing, the latter employed either as a preliminary drawing for the sculpture, or developed as an autonomous work.

He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts under Yiannis Moralis (1947-53). He continued his studies at the Saint Martin’s School of Art in London and the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris. He presented his first solo exhibition in 1957 in Paris (Galerie 93), where he lived most of his life.
Since the beginning of his career he integrated technological features in his art, using extensively mixed techniques and industrial materials (engines, mirrors, photocells). Initially he made use of the conquests of abstract art, emphasizing on the compositions’ disciplined structure and the materials’ texture. His interest in the function of light led him to lumino-kinetic works for a while (Kinoptics), with which he became well-known in the international art scene during the ‘60s. At the time, he was an exclusive artist of Redfern gallery in London, while in 1965 he exhibited for the first time in Athens (Hilton Art Hall). In his effort to express his complex concerns regarding human communication, nature’s regenerative power and the consequences of scientific developments on natural processes (Naturmatic, Erosions), he used a wide variety of artistic media, seeking his materials sometimes in nature, sometimes in advanced technology, and other times in the somewhat more traditional techniques of representational painting.
When he returned in Greece in 1990, he cooperated with Desmos gallery and settled in Chania, maintaining, though, for several years his close ties to France.
He presented his work in more than twenty solo shows in Greece, France, England, and other European countries. He also participated in many group shows, especially in France (Salon de la Jeune Peinture: 1958, 1959; Salon des Realites Nouvelles: 1972) He participated in the Avantgarde Griechenland exhibition (Berlin, 1968), through which Greek avant-garde artists were introduced in Europe. His first retrospective exhibition Transformations: 1950-2000 was organized in 1999 in Athens (To Milo Artspace). His second retrospective was presented at the Chania Municipal Gallery in 2005.

Having studied for five years at the Medical School of the University of Athens (1946-1950), he quit his studies and turned to the School of Fine Arts. After preliminary work at the Panos Sarafianos studio, he studied at the School (1950-1955) under Umvertos Argyros, Yannis Pappas and Yannis Moralis. At the same time he worked as an assistant to Yannis Tsarouchis on his various commissions for stage designs, making some of the sets himself.

From 1956 to 1960 he lived in Rome and then, till 1967, in Paris. He returned to Greece but political conditions forced him back to Paris in 1969. His work on Emigrants, a milestone in his career, led him to Berlin where he worked for nearly two years on a scholarship from D.A.A.D. (1973- 1975). In 1976 he settled permanently in Greece, in 1975 having been elected Professor to the Seat of Painting of the Architectural School of the National Technical University, where he taught until 1996. In 1981 and 1989 he was invited to teach at the Sommerakademie of Salzburg.

He began to exhibit in 1958, presenting his first solo show at the Zygos gallery, which was the first solo exhibition of abstract art in Greece. Many solo exhibitions followed, both inside and outside Greece, among which were the retrospectives at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm in 1972, the Karl Ernst Osthaus Museum in Hagen in 1991, the Staatliche Kunsthalle in Berlin in 1992 and the National Gallery of Greece in 1999. At the same time he presented his work at Panhellenies, group and international exhibitions, such as the Documenta of Kassel in 1977, the Europalia at Brussels in 1982 and the Venice Biennale in 1988.

One of the most illustrious representatives of the “Sixties Generation”, Vlassis Caniaris has focused his interest on an inquiry into the role of art in relationship to life. Drawing his inspiration from social and political conditions and abandoning traditional painting on a canvas practically from the start, he has based his work on the doctrines of new realism, arte povera and the art of the object and using his own personal style has created constructions of real materials, setting up “spaces” with puppets and objects and has thus produced environments, presenting his speculations in entities such as Walls, using plaster, barbed wire and carnations, “Gastarbeiter-Fremdarbeiter”, “Helas-Hellas”, and “North-South”. Since 1981 he has also been experimenting with a white role of paper through which he gives form to the concept of the Eventual Painting.

After two years at the Panteion University (1948-1950), he studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1951- 1955) under Yannis Moralis and Yannis Pappas. On a scholarship from the State Scholarship Service he studied fresco at the Paris School of Fine Arts (1957-1960) and remained in France till 1963, travelling at the same time to neighboring countries such as Belgium, The Netherlands, Spain, Italy and Great Britain. Ten years later, on a grant from the Ford Foundation, he worked in New York (1973- 1975). During that period he visited many cities in the United States and Canada. He presented his first solo exhibition in 1961 at the Zygos gallery while by 1952 he had begun to take part in the Panhellenies. He also was an important presence in international group exhibitions (3rd Youth Biennale of Paris 1963, 7th Biennale of Alexandria 1965, Sao Paolo Biennale 1967, Venice Biennale 1984, 4th Biennale of European Engraving, Baden-Baden 1985). In 1963, in an endeavor to revitalize the painting climate in Greece, he took part in the founding of the Section group and in 1976 the League of Artists.

From his early collages he moved on to figurative works of an expressionistic and surrealistic character and later made compositions where the elements of objective reality are rendered in a poetic way, at the same time further developing previous stages of his work, while special weight has been placed on the role of drawing.

A physician, a painter and an amateur archaeologist from Naples, Ceccoli sought in Corfu in 1839 the ideal climate for his ill daughter. From 1843 to 1852 he lived in Athens, working as a unpaid professor of painting at the School of Arts. In 1843, he played a major role in establishing the “Fine Arts Society.” In 1853, his works – drawings, genre paintings, paintings inspired from the Greek Revolution, as well as a portrait of King Otto – were exhibited in a room of the National Technical University. He finally left Greece after 1853.

He was mainly engaged in portraiture and landscape painting.

He studied at the School of Fine Arts under Yannis Moralis, graduating in 1965. From 1969 to 1974 he lived and worked in Lausanne, Paris and then New York, on a grant from the Ford Foundation. Since 1988 he has been teaching painting at the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotelian University of Thessaloniki.

He has presented his work in solo and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad, among which are the Alexandria Biennale of 1977 and the Brussels Europalia in 1982.

Influenced by social problems, he has focused his interest on human beings, the central motif in all his painting, while the motorcyclist has become the main symbolic figure of his entire oeuvre. Gradually distancing himself from realistic depiction, he experimented for a while with the techniques of the avant garde, but in the end opted for a style based on expressionism.

Displaying an inclination for painting from a very early age, he came to Athens in 1921 where until 1926 he studied at the School of Fine Arts, first under Alexandros Kaloudis and then Nikolaos Lytras. In 1930 he won the Benakeio Prize for his drawings for the wall paintings of the Ayios Dionysios Areopagitis and with that money made his first extensive educational tour of Europe, completing the illustration of the church walls from 1936 to 1939.

He began to exhibit in 1926, holding his first solo exhibition in 1929 at the Stratigopoulos gallery. A founding member of the “Techni” (Art) Group and “Stathmi” (Level), he contributed to their exhibitions as well as to the Biennales of Venice, in 1934 and 1964, Alexandria in 1957 and Sao Paolo in 1959. In 1955 the icons he made for the church of St. Constantine in Detroit were presented a that city’s Art Institute and in 1960 his work Lights and Shadows was exhibited at the Guggenheim Museum and awarded the local prize of the Greek Division of AICA. In 1975 and in 1983 his work was presented in exhibitions at the National Gallery.

For many years he taught at private and theater schools. In 1927 he began his involvement with set design, making the sets for many plays in both private and state theaters, as well as for quite a number of films. During the German occupation, he turned to engraving and circulated woodcuts, illustrated manuscripts and editions in manuscript, all clandestinely. His artistic creation also included book illustration, along with the publication of texts and caricatures in newspapers and magazines while in 1933, in collaboration with Agenor Asteriadis, he published “Pedika shedia” (Children’s Drawings).

A leading force of the “Thirties Generation”, Spyros Vasileiou was imbued with the ideal of “Greekness”. Using oils, tempera and water colors he depicted natural and urban space, portraits, still lifes and scenes from everyday life, combining select elements of tradition with models taken from constructivism, surrealism, pop art and photo-realism and creating compositions which were lyrical and, frequently, dream-like.

She studied at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris (1958-1960). In 1969, she began exhibiting, including a great number of solo exhibitions, contributions to Paris Salons and a wealth of group events in Europe and the United States.

Sofia Vari began her career as an artist with painting and also embraced sculpture. Her earliest work was anthropocentric, stylised, with flowing, flexible volumes. The stylisation in these works subsequently gave its place to abstraction, echoing Henry Moore’s and Jean Arp’s style, her subjects inspired by Greek mythology.

She studied at the School of Fine Arts (1903-1907) under Konstantinos Volanakis, Georgios Roilos, Nikephoros Lytras and Georgios Jakovides and also took lessons from Spyridon Vikatos. During the decade of 1897-1907, while still a student, she took part in many important artistic exhibitions, at the Zappeion Hall, the Society of Art Devotees and the Parnassos Hall as well as the International Exhibition of Athens in 1903. In 1906 she presented a show of her works, along with Thaleia Flora, and in 1907 had a solo exhibition at Parnassos Hall. With a scholarship from the Bozeios Bequest she completed her studies in Munich where she took private lessons and enrolled in the School of Ladies of the Society of Women Artists. She later settled in Paris, studying at the Grande Chaumiere and Colarossi Academies and presenting works at official Salons and group exhibitions. After her return to Greece in 1916 she continued her artistic and exhibition activity with appearances in group exhibitions and the organization of solo shows (1917, 1919, 1924, 1927, 1952). She lived the last years of her life in seclusion.
Her subject matter included genre scenes, portraits, still lifes and landscapes, which she rendered by exploiting the doctrines of impressionism.

Not much is known about his life. He worked in Haarlem between 1605 and 1655, where he got married in 1612.

He painted market and kitchen scenes, and still lifes. Large-scale market scenes were introduced by Pieter Aerten and Gioakim Joachim Beuckelaer. In fact, the former’s sons, Pieter and Aert, and their followers promoted them in Amsterdam and Haarlem, where they became a very popular genre. The work of van Schooten is characterized by its lack of motion, while in most of the painters who worked on this subject there is an obvious effort to capture the movement of the figures in space. From 1620, however, he introduced a perspectival opening of the setting to other rooms or landscapes.

Apart from his depictions of market or kitchen settings, in which a religious scene was often incorporated, as part of the daily life in Holland, the artists also depicted the “morning” theme, without any figures in the painting. A number of simple still lifes of a few kitchen utensils was made before 1630. This kind of composition eventually became more sophisticated, encompassing tablecloths, elaborate metal ware, and dishes of cheese, ham, fruit.