10 Facts About Spyros Vassiliou

Spyros Vassiliou was a Greek painter, printmaker, illustrator, and stage designer.

Spyros Vassiliou became widely recognized for his work starting in the 1930s, when he received the Benaki Prize from the Athens Academy.

The recipient of a Guggenheim Prize for Greece, Spyros Vassiliou's works have been exhibited in galleries throughout Europe, in the United States, and Canada.

The townsmen of Galaxidi, where Vassiliou was born, collected money to send him to Athens in 1921, to study at the Athens School of Fine Arts under teachers Alexandros Kaloudis and Nikolaos Lytras.

In 1929, Spyros Vassiliou held his first individual exhibition, and in 1930 he was awarded the Benaki Prize for his design of Saint Dionysios Church in Kolonaki, Athens.

Spyros Vassiliou represented Greece at the Venice Biennale in 1934 and 1964, exhibited in Alexandria in 1957, and at the Sao Paulo Art Biennial in 1959.

Spyros Vassiliou became recognized as a painter of the transformation of the modern urban environment, depicting with an unwavering eye the sprawl of urban development that surrounded his home in Athens, under the walls of the Parthenon.

Spyros Vassiliou paid homage to the Byzantine icon by floating symbols of everyday Greek life on washes of gold or sea-blue color, very much like the religious symbols that float on gold in religious art.

The home and studio of Spyros Vassiliou opened to the public as a Museum in June 2004 with the help of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.

The Spyros Vassiliou Archive is maintained by ARTIFEX, a non-profit organization which preserves and promotes Spyros Vassiliou's work.