Biography

Late member of the so-called “Generation of ’30” in Modern Greek Painting, a term that more closely relates to the corresponding generation in Modern Greek Literature with its two Nobel laureates, and does not retain the same autonomy in the visual arts. Born in Smyrna, Asia Minor (on February 4, 1917) just a few years before the Catastrophe, painter and engraver Georgios Sikeliotis grew up from 1922 onwards in the refugee neighborhood of Kaisariani, working for many years in his father’s grocery store. In 1935, he was admitted to the Athens School of Fine Arts (A.S.K.T.), where he apprenticed under Dimitrios Biskinis (1891-1947) initially and then under Kostis Parthenis (1878-1967), graduating in 1940. From 1941 to 1944, he created only a few sketches and small pocket works, as he stated in a 1975 documentary by George Emirzas on ERT: “I couldn’t paint when our people were dying from hunger, hardships, terror, and executions (…) I did something much more useful: I fought against the occupier.” In 1945, he married Charikleia Konstantinidi, a dance teacher, with whom he would have two children, Vasso and Fotika. The period from 1945 to 1950 was one of his artistic maturation, during which he gradually freed himself from the burdens of his apprenticeship at A.S.K.T., according to his own words. Due to his involvement in the struggle against the occupier, as well as the slow but sure process of discovering his personal style, his first solo exhibition would be delayed, organized only in 1954 at the “Vima” galleries. He would then exhibit his work in numerous solo shows, with the next one held in 1958 at “Zygos,” where he showcased figures of Karagiozis. In 1960, he exhibited again at “Zygos” and in 1961 at the artistic group “Techni” in Thessaloniki. In 1963, 26 of his paintings were exhibited for the AGET (Heracles) calendar, again at “Zygos,” and the same year, a solo exhibition of his work was presented at the “Hellenic-American Union.” In 1965, under the auspices of the Greek consulate, a solo exhibition of his was organized at the Greek Island Gallery in New York. Following a short gap due to the junta established by the colonels in Greece, during which he traveled to England in 1971 and stayed for six months painting neighborhoods and houses of “Old England,” he exhibited again in 1973 at “Kohlias” in Thessaloniki and in Crete that same year together with engraver Vasso Katraki (1914-1988). In 1974, he exhibited successively at “Nees Morfes” in Athens, at “Argo” in Nicosia, and at the British Council in Athens, where he presented works from his travels in England. In 1975, a retrospective exhibition of his work was organized at the National Gallery by Dimitris Papastamos, celebrating its 75 years of operation, coinciding with the inauguration of its new building the following year. The artists selected to represent Modern Greek painting were, in order, N. Hatzikyriakos-Gikas (1906-1994), G. Gounaropoulos (1889/90-1977), Sikeliotis, Tassos (1914-1985), and Sp. Vasileiou (1903-1985). That same year, he also exhibited in Larissa, at the “Workshop” gallery. In 1978, he organized a retrospective exhibition of drawings at “Nees Morfes,” and in 1979 at “Diagonio” by Dinos Christianopoulos (1931-2020) in Thessaloniki. In 1980, he held two solo exhibitions at the “Chrysothemis” gallery in Chalandri and at the “Art Hall of Piraeus.” He participated in dozens of group exhibitions, including the Panhellenic exhibitions of 1948, 1952, 1965, and 1975, and was a member of the artistic group “Stathmi.” His work was also exhibited in the Modern Greek Art Exhibition in Rome in 1953, in the exhibition of 10 Greek painters at the Robertson gallery in Montreal in 1954 and 1958, at the 2nd Biennale of Alexandria in 1957-58, in Helsinki in 1960, in Linen, Germany in 1961-62, in Belgrade in 1962, in Moscow in 1963-64, and at “Art Basel” in Switzerland in 1976, as well as in Ottawa and Toronto. In 1960, he was selected among the candidates for the Guggenheim award and received an honorable mention for his work “Girls with Doves.” In the last period of his life, from 1977 to 1983, he maintained a studio in Paris. He also illustrated many literary books, musical albums, and school textbooks, among others. His works can be found in various collections including the EPMAS, the Municipal Gallery of Linen in Germany, the Municipality of Athens, the Gennadius Library, the World House Gallery in New York, the Collection of the Hellenic Parliament, the Ministry of Education, the Vorres and Pieridis Museums, and collections of the National Bank, Alpha Bank, and the “Heracles – Olympus” Cement Company, as well as in municipal galleries in Thessaloniki, Rhodes, Mytilene, Kalamata, Heraklion, Xanthi, Larissa, Edessa, Serres, Kavala, Veria, Florina, Zitsa, Messolonghi, Sparta, Leonidio, Kea, Elefsina, etc. After the restoration of Democracy, he organized over 25 solo exhibitions of “Artistic Decentralization” in the Greek provinces, donating works to the corresponding municipal galleries that were formed at that time along with other donations. He passed away in Athens on September 4, 1984, and was buried in Kaisariani at the expense of the Municipality.

The work of G. Sikeliotis centers on humanity, characterized by its immediacy and his sincere and consistent moral stance. He primarily traces his roots to popular shadow theater, as well as to the Byzantine frontal and two-dimensional depiction of figures, and the black-figure ancient Greek vase painting of the 6th century. As he states in the documentary about him: “I paint the human figure by writing down its elements one by one. I express my painting more through form than through the play of light, shadow, or color.” His technique helps him achieve the subtle yet solid emergence of the eternal themes depicted in his paintings, as he layers color in successive coats, maintaining a continuous unity in his work: “I am not interested in each work individually, but only in its development (…) I want the work to be a continuous flow of life.” A hallmark of his visual language is the uniform filling of his figures “with color processed solely through scraping to convey pulse and tone,” as noted by Eleni Vakalo (The Nature of Postwar Art in Greece. Volume Three: The Myth of Greekness, Athens 1983). The materials of his colors are barrel powders mixed with egg (see Eleni Vakalo, Critique of Visual Arts: 1950-1974, selection and editing by Olga Daniilopoulou, Athens 1996, Vol. A, p. 14). He often mixes tempera with acetone (see Critiques of the Work of Georgios Sikeliotis 1950-1975, Athens 1975, p. 17). Art History professor Miltiadis Papanikolaou highlights (Greek Art of the 20th Century. Painting – Sculpture, Thessaloniki 2006, p. 158) the origins of the hard and shadowy contours in popular posters, as well as his anti-realist intentions. Toni Spiteris also noted (Critiques of the Work of Georgios Sikeliotis 1950-1975, Athens 1975, p. 17), as early as 1952, the high spirituality that characterizes the “architectural will” and the “binding of shapes and colors” in his painting. Marinos Kaligas, in 1960, referred (op. cit., p. 64) to the main characteristics of his work: “simplicity of form, solidity of composition, austerity of individual elements.” It is a fact, however, that Sikeliotis does not indulge in lyrical outbursts and descriptive depictions, as emphasized by Efi Ferentinou (op. cit., p. 67), in the same year as Kaligas: “his intention remains always genuinely plastic.” Manolis Andronikos, in a text in Vima the following year, underscores (op. cit., p. 89) that “in Sikeliotis’ paintings there is a radical antinomy, which gives them a tragic, one might say, character,” and offers a profound and advanced observation (op. cit., p. 91) about his time: “the same chaos, the same anxiety, the same deadlock that afflicts the more ‘abstract’ and ‘formless’ painters of our time. This must mean that the message of both is not superficial.” One of the most ardent supporters of Sikeliotis’ work was G. P. Savvidis (1929-1995), who provides the following interpretation (op. cit., p. 101) of his “Sikeliotic” works: he finds them precisely “conscious and synthetic, authentic and venerable, robust and passionate.” Sikeliotis’ colors are earthy, dominated by umber, ochre, and sienna. His work is also marked by a bitter realization of those forms of life that are lost within the rapidly changing world of the second half of the 20th century. As Diana Antonakatou notes (op. cit., p. 121), in his painting we encounter “a funerary stance, which means a ‘greeting’ to life, to the good, beloved life of the people.” After the dictatorship, Sikeliotis would impress art critics once again with his landscapes, which, while not betraying the depicted objects, serve as a sensitive transfer to Sikeliotis’ inner painting world, reminiscent of the mood and spontaneity of inspiration found in Romantic landscape painters. Academic Chrysanthos Christou noted in 1978 (Critiques of the Work of Georgios Sikeliotis 1975-1980, Athens 1982, p. 83) that Sikeliotis’ work shows “that color is a design and expressive value, just as it is a plastic value, which imposes a new vision of the world and life.” Nonetheless, Sikeliotis’ influences are not unrelated to Cubism, which dominated 20th-century France, particularly in the form of Picasso, as well as the post-war tendency toward abstraction, which, like Cubism, is rooted in primitivism that profoundly affects modern painting following the discovery of the art of primitive tribes and the self-taught artists like Henri Rousseau (1844-1910) and Theofilos Kefalas-Hatzimichail (1870-1934). Sikeliotis also paints with the same naivety of intention and deep dedication to the creative process as these painters. As he himself states (op. cit., p. 65) in response to why he paints: “One person fixes a broken radio and says: I fixed it! Another fixes a broken lock and says: I fixed it! And he is happy…”

Anestis Melidonis

Art Historian

Scientific Associate of the Greek Diaspora Foundation