Through Gikas’s autobiographical narrative, the book transports us to the atmosphere of early 20th-century Athens and the painter’s immediate family environment, vividly recounting his earliest experiences.
The publication is illustrated with his own drawings from the years 1935–1945 and supplemented with family photographs.
- Pages: 176
- ISBN: 978-960-7721-09-9
- Publication: 1996
- Dimensions: 20,5 x 13,5
- Categories: Books, Biographies & Personal Narratives, Biographies
Nikos Hatzikyriakos-Gikas
Nikos Hatzikyriakos-Gikas was born in Athens on 26 February 1906. From a young age, he showed a particular aptitude for drawing and so, whilst still a schoolboy, he took painting lessons from Konstantinos Parthenis.
In 1922, he went to Paris, where, alongside his studies in French Literature and Aesthetics at the Sorbonne, he attended painting and engraving classes at the Académie Ranson, under the tutelage of Bissière and D. Galanis.
He held his first exhibition in Paris in 1923, at the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des Surindépendants, and subsequently took part in numerous group exhibitions.
His first solo exhibition was organised in Paris in 1927 at the Galerie Percier, whilst his first exhibition in Athens, at the Stratigopoulou Hall in 1928, was held alongside the works of the sculptor Michalis Tompros.
Already an established artist by 1934, he left Paris and settled in Athens.
Between 1935 and 1937, Gikas collaborated with the architect D. Pikionis, the poet T. Papatzonis and the director D. Karantinos on the publication of the magazine ‘To Trito Mati’.
In 1937, he renovated the Gikas family home on Hydra, where he painted his first works in which he finally found his artistic voice, combining the principles of Cubism with the nature, light and architecture of Greece.
In 1941, he was appointed professor of the Department of Design at the School of Architecture of the National Technical University of Athens, where he taught until 1958.
In 1972, he was elected a full member of the Academy of Athens and, in 1986, an honorary member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Department of Architecture of the Polytechnic School of the University of Thessaloniki (1982) and an honorary doctorate by the Faculty of Philosophy of the University of Athens (1991).
More than 50 exhibitions of the artist’s work have been organised over the years in Athens, Paris, London, Geneva, Berlin and New York.
His works are held in many private collections in Greece, Western Europe and the United States, as well as in numerous museums, such as the Musée d’art moderne in Paris, the Tate Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the National Gallery in Athens.
In addition to painting, sculpture and printmaking, Hatzikyriakos-Gikas was also involved in stage design, creating sets and costumes for several theatrical productions, such as Aristophanes’ ‘The Clouds’ (National Theatre 1951, Comédie Française 1952), and A. Gide’s ballet ‘Persephone’ with music by I. Stravinsky (Covent Garden 1961). He also illustrated a variety of books, including N. Kazantzakis’s ‘The Odyssey’, Loggos’s ‘Daphne and Chloe’, C. Cavafy’s “Poems”, and wrote books, studies and articles on architecture and aesthetics, as well as essays on Greek art.
The artist died on 3 September 1994.
