Biography

The Ionian Art, of great importance for Neo-Greek Art, with its five most important painters: Panagiotis (1662-1729) and Nikolaos Doxaras (1700/06-1775), HieronymosPlakotos (1680-1728), Nikolaos Koutouzis(1741-1813) and Nikolaos Kantounis (1767-1834), was, thanks also to the Venetian rule, which was consolidated in 1684 with the conquest of Lefkada by Morosini, a deep breath of artistic freedom, perhaps the only one until the Greek Revolution, after the fall of Crete in 1669.In this island, “next to the long tradition of the workshops, the academic type of studies in the fine arts is presented for the first time” (Kostis Liontis, “Eptanisian Art”, The Daily – Seven Days, vol. 51, tribute “Eptanisian Art”, edited by Kostis Liontis, 23/2/1997, p. 4). The famous painters born in Kefalonia, Georgios Miniatis (1823-1895), Nikolaos Typaldo-Xydias (1828-1909),Georgios Avlichos (1842-1909), and Spyros Vikatos born in 1872 in Argostoli, third child of the sailor AloisiosVikatos and Angeliki Seraphim (see StalinaVoutsina, The Painter Spyros Vikatos [1872-1960], Athens 2012, p. 12).Vikatos was orphaned by his father at an early age and was forced to work in the pharmacy of his town to help his family, already at the age of 9. There he spends his free time painting, exhibiting works with religious themes at the storefronts (see V. Kountouridis, 90 Greek painters, engravers and sculptors, Athens 1991, p. 37). His talent in early age will impress the metropolitan of the island, Germanos Kalligas (1844-1896), who promises to take him to Athens to study the art of painting. He will fulfill his promise in 1890, as in 1889 he becomes Metropolitan of Athens. There he will study in the period 1890-1899 at the School of Arts, with his teachers the painters Nikiforos Lytras (1832-1904), the so-called “patriarch” of Modern Greek Painting, and Spyridon Prosalentis (1830-1895), son of Pavlos Prosalentis (1784- 1837), founder of the first academic school of painting in 1811 in Corfu. The influential sculptor Georgios Vroutos (1843-1909) was his teacher in the plastic art course. In 1897 he is mentioned (Xenophon Sochos, Spyros Vikatos, Athens 1938, p. 6) as having been awarded the Chrysobergion and the Thomaidian award. Already in 1898 he participates in the “2nd Art Exhibition” in Zappeion, as well as in the permanent exhibitions of the “Society of Artists” (1899, 1900, 1902). After the death of his patron, Metropolitan Germanos, he will manage to win two scholarships, from the Petraki Monastery and from Ephrosyne Vallianou, widow of Andreas Vallianou. Then he will be able to go to study at the Royal Academy of Munich, having for about a year as his teacher the most prominent Greek painter of the 19th century after Lytra, Nikolaos Gyzis (1842-1901). After his death at the end of the year his teacher will become the eminent for his contribution to German Impressionism, LudwigvonLöfftz (1845-1910). In 1901 he was awarded among 300 students of the School for his work The Chess. In 1903 he received for one more time the first prize among his students. In 1903 he received the bronze prize of the Athens International Exhibition. Before completing his studies, he will exhibit his works at the Glaspalast in Munich (1904), while in the same year he receives the silver medal at the Athens International Exhibition. In 1905 he received the silver medal of the Munich Academy for his work The Lobster. He also visited Paris, Berlin and other major cities. Upon his definitive return to Athens, he presented his work in two individual exhibitions (“Athenian Club”, 1905; “Parnassos”, 1906). In 1907 he became a member of the “Artistic Society” (1907-1910), participating in its exhibitions in Zappeion (1908, 1909). In 1908 he was awarded the gold medal at the International Exhibition of Bordeaux, for his work Sister of Mercy. In the same year, he founded a painting school for women with his fellow painter and resident, Marianthi Dracontaidei (b. d. 1870), at 46 Charilaou Trikoupi Street in Exarchia. This School will not operate for long, as in 1909 he will be appointed as a professor of sketching at the School of Arts, with the establishment of a special law by the government of George Theotokis. In 1911 he participated in Rome International Exhibition and in 1919 he exhibited at the “East” Art Gallery. In 1920 he became director of the Laboratory of the renewed School of Fine Arts, after its independence from the Polytechnic in 1910. In his workshop at the School he had the opportunity to teach a large number of students, many of whom left a strong impression on the history of Modern Greek Painting, such as Sofia Laskaridou (1876-1965), Apostolos Geralis (1886-1983), Giorgos Gounaropoulos (1889-1970), Agenor Asteriadis (1898-1977), Yiannis Tsarouhis (1910-1989), Yiannis Spyropoulos (1912-1990) )etc. In 1928 he will have a solo exhibition in the “Strategopoulos Hall” and in 1933 in his atelier. He also participated in the exhibitions of the “Society of Artists” (1899, 1900, 1902), the Association of Greek Artists (1915, 1917, 1921) and the Panhellenic exhibitions (1938, 1939, 1940, 1948, 1952, 1957) in Athens, as well as in exhibition of the association “Kunstfüralle” in 1935 in Munich, where he will also be a member of the group “The Independents” (Die Unabhängigen). In 1934 and 1936 he participated in Venice Biennale for two times in a row, and in 1937 in the Paris International Exhibition, where he was awarded the Diploma of Honor. In 1937, he received the National Excellence in Letters and Arts, although he would never be recommended to become an academic. In the same year, he participates in the group “Academic Painters” (1937-1940), which will receive fierce criticism. In 1939 he retired from the School due to the age limit established by the Metaxas regime. In 1946 he was awarded the Cross of the Phoenix by King George II and in 1953 the Grand Cross of the West German Order of Merit by Chancellor KonradAdenauer. In 1947 he participated in the “Greek Art” exhibition at the Royal Swedish Academy of Fine Arts in Stockholm and in 1948 in the group exhibition at the “Parnassos” literary club. In 1951, the Munich Academy named him an honorary member, an honor that fills him with pride, since he never ceased to admire the German academic school of painting. In 1954 he will organize a solo exhibition at the Municipal Gallery of Munich and 12 of his works donated by himself will be exhibited at the National Gallery in the departmental exhibition under Marino Kalligas, the only works by a living painter in the exhibition, in a fitting tribute to the elderly artist. His works have been acquired by the Metropolis of Athens (Apocathilosis), the National Museum of Belgrade (in 1925), the PetitPalais in Paris, the Galleries of Bern, Munich (in 1935) and Bulgaria, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Italy (in 1936), the National Historical Museum, the E. Averof Gallery, the G. I. Katsigra Museum, the Municipal Gallery of Chania, the Ioannina Gallery, the Eleftherios Venizelos Museum of History, the University of Athens, the Teloglio Foundation, the Collection of the School of Fine Arts, the Collection of the Municipality of Athens, the Grigoriadis Gallery, as well as numerous private collections, such as the Leventis Collection, the Voyatzoglou Collection, the National Bank Collection, etc. After his death, on 6/6/1960, an exhibition on “Parnassos” will be organized in 1961 by his friends and students, and in 1962 a memorial exhibition, under the care of his painter student Giannakos (1927-2000), at the House of Letters and Arts. In the National Gallery there are more than 30 works donated by him, intended to be exhibited in a room bearing his name. He was childless and left all his property to A.S.K.T. (for the further training of painters in Munich) and the National Gallery, just like his sister.

The work of Sp. Vikatos is not easily categorized, although its associations with both the German Impressionism of Löfftz’s and with the expressive use of colors from the late German countryside are evident (see Stelios Lydakis, History of Neo-Greek Painting [16th-20th century], Athens 1976, p. 276). He was a studio painter and patiently worked on his works, which he sold almost immediately, this is why he did not hold many individual exhibitions. As he had stated (Ethnos, 14/5/1927): “I always focus on quality and not on quantity. Every project of mine takes work. I’ve been working non-stop on it for many months.” His way of working, with his speed and expressionistic tendency, with the use of his fingers and cloths, more than the brush, helped him to express his personal temperament, and to maintain a personal style. His contemporary techno critic will note: “When he is working, you think he is fighting, he looks like a wrestler on the ring” (D. Kallonas, Contemporary Greek painters and sculptors, Athens 1944, p. 61). As Aggelos Prokopiou will emphasize (History of art, vol. II, Romanticism, Realism, Impressionism, Athens 1969, p. 370), Vikatos “is very free in formulating his sense of nature and more faithful to his individuality rather than in the actual world (…) he could be considered as a forerunner of expressionism in Greece (..) He opened the way to the free expression of the individual temperament”. Diana Antonakatos will distinguish (Cephalline Painters and Sculptors, Dimos Athinaion 1994, p. 10) the Mediterranean exuberance of Vikatos, digested in a post-classicist perception of most painters of the Ionian Sea, who did not accept the revolutions of the 20th century. He excelled in landscape painting, anthography, interior compositions with philosophical depth, but even more in the art of portraiture, creating the portraits of many eminent persons of the time, such as Georgios Iakovides (1853-1932) – he painted him two months before his death–, Ioannis Metaxas (1871-1941), Georgios Drosinis (1859-1951), Dimitrios Kambouroglou (1852-1942), Panagis Vallianos (1814-1902), Dionysios Taboularis (1842-1928), Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1936) ) -he painted him in March 1915-, Adonis Kyrou (1923-1985), Emmanuel Repoulis (1863-1924) and Andreas Syngros (1830-1899). Thanks to his particular and comprehensive technique he was able to capture the content of the personality of the depicted without chatter. In the last decades of his work, after 1920, he will go beyond the academic and impressionistic influence and render a more abstract work, with the gradual removal of contours, giving to the looks of the faces “all the vibration of their interiority, devotion, faith, hope, so strongly expressed that they are immediately transmitted to the viewer’s senses before they touch his cerebral perception” (Aggelos Doxas, “Vikato Memorial”, eff. Anexartitos Typos, 21/3/1962). As the former director of the National Gallery, Dimitris Papastamos will emphasize (Painting 1930-40 Artistic and aesthetic placement in the decade, Athens 1981, p. 59): “With quick broad strokes that convey the pulse of the mental state of the faces and the movement of composition tries to escape from the dark colors and static of the Academy”. In religious subjects, his influence is evident from a Western-style Neo-Renaissance religious painting, such as was cultivated in the Ionian Islands, but mainly by the German Nazarene painters, with the prominent influence of Julius Schnorrvon Carolsfeld (1794-1872), who created the monumental illustration of the Bible, published at Leipzig in 1852-60. Vikatos undoubtedly ranks among the Greek painters of international fame and scope, with the beginnings of his art found in Rembrandt and Flemish painting of the 17th century, but also in Velázquez and Ribera. The wide range of his influences combined with his contact with searches for the present, as expressed mainly by the Sezession movement in Munich (for this synthesis of past and present, see Chr. Christou, Greek painting 1832-1922, Athens 1993, p. 106), distinguishes him from his teacher himself, since, as Alexandros Philadelfeus will underline (Xenophon Sochos, Spyros Vikatos, Athens 1938, p. 5), what “made him (…) “international physiognomy” is that he had the intelligence not to confine himself to the narrow borders of his homeland, as unfortunately did his first great teacher Nikif. Lytras, and he constantly communicated through his works and in person with the outside world and thus he is considered as a member of the global artistic family”. His tendency towards a relief type of painting is also due to his technical perfection, as “he painted with unimaginable speed and skill, shaping and kneading the color with tactile sensation” (Tonis Spiteris, 3 Aiones Νeohellenikis Texnis 1660-1967, vol. B’, Athens 1979, p. 143), as well as the fact that “he works with wide, quick strokes that ignore the contours and free the whole” (Nelli Misirli, Bank of Greece Collection, Athens 1993, p. 19). Its main colors are TerredeSienneBrulée, Ocred’or, Noir and Lacquedegarance. His favorite theme was the contrast between old age and childhood, a theme that had also been cultivated by the two other Greek teachers of Munich, Gyzis and Iakovides. As he characteristically described this theme: “The human spring with the blossomy smile, the promise and the sunset in the meadow of asphodels. Two moving milestones that continue to inspire and fuel my artistic mood.” His artistic instinct always remained his teacher and he refrained from innovations that he considered to distract art from its contact with the beauty. As he testifies: “The public is pleased by compositions, which are not taught, but are the product of the deep feeling of the artist (…) Nature is the guide and the teacher of the artist”.

Anestis Melidonis
Art Historian
Scientific Associate of the Hellenic Diaspora Foundation