The nostalgia for a vanishing Athens, for an everyday familiarity rapidly disappearing in the anonymous mass of an impersonal megalopolis was an inexhaustible mine of inspiration for Uncle Spyros, as he was affectionately called by his many admirers. The folk roots of his painting, which combine tradition with modernism, establish him among the authentic representatives of the Thirties Generation, to which he also belonged chronologically.
The Microcosm of Webster Street, which depicts a corner of his studio near the Acropolis, is an intimate representation of the painter’s world. An old mirror on a wall between two openings gives us the reflection of a half-finished painting of a solitary chair on the sand near the sea. This is one of the subjects Vassileiou enjoyed painting at his country home in Eretria.
Another painting depicts the view of the Acropolis from his house, with all the newer buildings in the foreground. The juxtaposition of the ancient structures and the beautiful neoclassical ones with the tasteless, mass-produced new apartment buildings that had begun overwhelming Athens was one of Vassileiou’s favorite themes. The “actual” view of the Theater of Herodes Atticus and the Acropolis is revealed through two balcony doors to the left and right of the wall. The sky is covered with gold leaf. The multiple paintings captured within the painting, the reflections of paintings in the mirror, create an exciting picture of the type that long always enchanted painters, especially 16th century Mannerists. Vassileiou combines accurate drawing with the light, atmospheric colors that convey the ethereal quality of the Attic light. The golden ochre hues dialogue with complementary blues alongside the silence of the white wall.
Painted by Pablo Picasso (Malaga 1881 – Mougins 1973) in 1939, “Female Head” was donated by the artist to the Greek people in honour of its brave resistance during the Nazi occupation; it formed part of the French Artist’s Donation, made on the initiative of the Milliex couple in the aftermath of the War. It is a portrait of the photographer Dora Maar, Picasso’s companion between 1936 and 1943, as evidenced by the fact that this painting can be seen in a photograph by her from the studio at Royan, in 1940, where they retreated when Paris was occupied by the German army.
Dora Maar documented as a photographer the complete production process of the Guernica; her personality provided Picasso with the model for “the weeping woman”. Two and a half years after “Guernica”, the same attitude towards colour is noted in “Female Head”, conveying the pessimist mood prevalent during World War II.
Although Panagiotis Tetsis lived in Paris in the 1950s, when the non-representational currents of abstraction were imposing themselves on art practice throughout Europe and the U.S., he remained faithful to figurative painting. His technique, his free, gestural but always structural brushwork, as well as his palette are testimony to the fact that he was never indifferent to developments in modern art. But he never abandoned his painterly gaze towards imagery that derived from visual stimulus. Landscapes and cityscapes, icons, portraits, and still lifes comprise Tetsis’ typical subject matter. He has a particular affinity for his birthplace, the island of Hydra, the island of Sifnos, where he spends his summer holidays, and the urban Athenian scene. Tetsis’ painting is never descriptive. He pursues the painterly equivalent of reality and renders it in strong colors, establishing him as one of the boldest colorists in contemporary Greek art. This palette is not automatically found in the Greek outdoors, where the strong sunlight tends to wash out just about hue. Tetsis succeeded in giving back to his Greek countryside the force of the color known only in the indigenous landscape painting of the first two decades of the 20th century.
The Blue Chairs II is a typical example of Tetsis’ unrivalled ability to render the intensity of the Greek light, even when limiting his palette to cool colors such as blue and green. The yellow cup, the only warm tone in the painting, dialogues with the complementary blue-violet and enlivens the entire painting surface.
