20th Century Art: A Different Perspective

20th Century Art: A Different Perspective

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 17. YANNIS TSAROUCHIS | SAILOR.

Property from a Private Collection

YANNIS TSAROUCHIS | SAILOR

Lot Closed

November 12, 02:17 PM GMT

Estimate

60,000 - 80,000 GBP

Lot Details

Description

Property from a Private Collection

YANNIS TSAROUCHIS

Greek, 1910 - 1989

SAILOR


signed in Greek and dated 39 centre left

distemper on canvas

68 by 45½cm., 26¾ by 18in.

framed: 87 by 64cm., 34¼ by 25¼in.


To view shipping calculator, please click here


Please note, Condition 11 of the Conditions of Business for Buyers (Online Only) is not applicable to this lot.

Private collection, Athens (a gift from the artist; sale: Stavros Mihalarias Art, Athens, 21 November 1989, lot 44)

Purchased at the above sale by the present owner

Depictions of soldiers and sailors define Tsarouchis' work. 

Widely acclaimed as a painter of the Greek people, his work attempted a reconciliation of Western and Eastern pictorial traditions. Like many of the Greek avant-garde intellectuals and artists of his time, Tsarouchis became actively involved with the popular art movement and the search for the Greek in art. He travelled extensively in Greece, Turkey, Asia Minor and France, where he studied Byzantine music, painting and textiles, and was particularly inspired by the works of Matisse and Demetrios Galanis.


Tsarouchis' initial training was at the School of Fine Arts in Athens under Georgios Jakobides and Constantinos Parthenis while also working in the studio of Fotis Kontoglou, a religious painter who exposed him to Byzantine art. In 1935 Tsarouchis left Athens for Paris. It was in the French capital that he was able to study the work of the Renaissance masters and French Impressionists. Immersing himself in Parisian art circles, he befriended painters such as Matisse, Laurens and Giacometti. By 1936 Tsarouchis had returned to his beloved Athens, organising his first solo exhibition.


One of the most important representatives of the Thirties Generation, Tsarouchis embodied in his work the ideal of 'Greek'. With a multiplicity of influences from Hellenistic and Byzantine art, the art of the Renaissance as well as the work of Matisse, Theophilos and Kontoglou, and the figures of Karaghiozis shadow puppets, he created a unique personal style and depicted landscapes, still lifes, nudes and allegorical scenes.