Nikolaos Lytras

Sale: Christie's, London, 19 March 1993, lot 74
Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

A Rocky Coast  is a major example of Lytras's mature style. Island views and coastal scenes are among the artist's favorite subjects. Together with Constantinos Parthenis and Constantinos Maleas, Nikolaos Lytras was a pioneer of twentieth-century Greek painting. Like many of his contemporaries, he studied at the Munich academy under Ludwig von Löfftz and Karl von Piloty.  The son of Munich master Nikiforos Lytras, his work provided a crucial link between Romanticism and Modernism in the development of Greek painting in the early decades of the last century. 

'An ability to mould his knowledge of contemporary avant-garde currents from abroad and his excellent technique into an idiom of form entirely his own, enabled him to reach great heights. His oeuvre is characterised by the imposition of colour on form and of the internal element on the external. Lytras opened new pathways and attracted a coterie of younger artists who strove to release Greek painting from the formula of the past' (Chrisanthos Christou, The National Gallery: 19^th and 20^th Century Greek Paintings, Athens, 1992, p. 20).

Lytras's absorption of mainstream influences led to a studied avoidance of references to Hellenistic tradition. The broad free brushstrokes and vigorous colouring of the present work exhibits the highly expressive use of pigment and non-illusionistic space that defined Lytras' style.