24 Facts About Nonda

Nonda was one of the handful of Greek artists who received scholarships from the French government to attend the Ecole De Beaux Arts in the late 40s.

Nonda was represented primarily by the Galerie Charpentier in the 50s and early 60s and was well known for his outdoor installations under the Pont Neuf Bridge in 1960s Paris as well as his unconventional use of cow's blood as a medium.

Nonda's work is often associated with large scale figurative and abstract expressionist canvases, and monumental sculpture in post-war Paris.

Nonda studied drawing and painting under Spiros Vikatos, who encouraged him in the classical tradition and praised his particular gift in portraiture.

Nonda exhibited a series of explicit nudes, violent, and highly erotic, crammed with images of Paris and its more liberated women, as well as the series of Femmes Chapeautees which would be shown the same year at the Zaharias gallery.

Nonda began producing freer, Expressionist works that reflected his turbulent life as well as his deepening confidence as an artist.

Nonda was ceaselessly experimental with different mediums in his art, using oils, powders wood and sand sand, as well as numerous invented combinations.

Wherever he went, Nonda seemed to exude an aura of passionate intensity which intoxicated those around him.

Nonda held firmly to an artistic integrity that one might trace back to his father's influence as a fine tailor.

Nonda owned many of their early works, and soon bought paintings from Nonda.

In 1960, with the personal support of the French minister of culture, Andre Malraux, Nonda organized a one-man exhibition under the arch of the Pont Neuf.

Nonda was drawn to this mysterious figure, the great French medieval poet who somehow combined a life of promiscuity, murder and debauchery with some of the finest poetry in the French language.

Nonda's vision is humoristic, a parody which reverses the morals and values he believed had paralyzed literature.

Nonda's poetry wished to free readers into a fantasy borne of laughter.

Nonda lived inside the horse for the duration of the show, and guests were able to sit with him in the medieval chairs at the hand carved tables and drink from the goblets he had cast in bronze.

In 1968, Nonda began to experiment with colourful acrylics on large canvasses after a six-month stay in New York City during which he discovered the qualities of acrylic paints for the first time.

Nonda conducted an entire series of these vivid canvasses which explore abstracted or stylized human form with new emphasis on colour.

Nonda actually painted numerous early large scale works on his hands and knees in the all night meat and fish markets of Les Halles in Paris.

Nonda used blood, charcoal and oil for smaller works on paper in the 1950s when materials were scarce, and explored the medium further in large compositions such as Par la Fin in the 1960s.

In 1959, Jean-Paul Crespelle writes in a feature story for the France-Soir newspaper, "Just as Picasso had his rose period and his blue period, so Nonda will be remembered for his period of spleen".

Nonda was beginning to investigate fiberglass and new polyurethanes when his health prevented him from exploring them further.

Always nostalgic for Paris, Nonda used French text in many of his paintings in the 1980s and consistently told his wife he wanted to return permanently to Paris once the sculptures were finished.

At the time of the exhibit in 2003, Nonda was too ill to attend.

Nonda died at 83 in October 2005 at his home in Athens.