Catalog
Premium 76. 76AR NIKOS ENGONOPOULOS (1907-1985)
The Synagogue of Hal…
See original version (French)
76. 76AR NIKOS ENGONOPOULOS (1907-1985)
The Synagogue of Hal…
See original version (French)
Lot no. 76
Description
76. 76AR NIKOS ENGONOPOULOS (1907-1985)
The Synagogue of Halkida, side facade, from the courtyard
signed in Greek and dated "65" lower right
oil on canvas
55 x 45 cm (21.65 x 17.72 in.)
Painted in 1965
Oil on canvas
Provenance
E. Katsadimas collection, Athens.
Private collection, Athens.
Literature
Tachydromos magazine, no. 669, February 4, 1967, p. 47 (mentioned), p. 46, fig. 6 (illustrated).
N. Engonopoulos, Hellenic Houses, National Technical University, Athens 1972, no. 6 (listed and illustrated).
The Poet Nikos Engonopoulos, 2007 Diary, Ypsilon editions, Athens 2006, p. 218 (detail illustrated).
N. Engonopoulos, Hellenic Houses, National Technical University of Athens Press, Athens 1996, p. 23 (illustrated).
D. Vlachodimos, Reading the Past in Engonopoulos, Indiktos editions, Athens 2006, p. 210 (mentioned).
N. Chaini, The Painting of Nikos Engonopoulos, doctoral dissertation, National Technical University of Athens, 2007, pp. 848, 850 (discussed), p. 983 (listed), p. 851, fig. 363 (illustrated).
K. Perpinioti-Agazir, Nikos Engonopoulos, Son Univers Pictural, exhibition catalogue and catalogue raisonée, Benaki Museum, Athens 2007, no. 886, p. 349 (illustrated), p. 494 (catalogued and illustrated).
"Engonopoulos's houses are 'psychographs' of buildings."
Dimitris Pikionis
A minimalist beauty of elegant geometry, refined proportion, and austere grace, La Synagogue de Halkida showcases Engonopoulos's life-long fascination with Greek architecture. In fact, his first appearance in the Greek art scene, in 1938, was an exhibition of temperas of traditional houses from western Macedonia, following repeated field trips to central and northern Greece organized by A. Chatzimichali and the famed architect Dimitris Pikionis. In 1942, along with architects N. Argyropoulos and A. Papageorgiou, he produced drawings of neoclassical Athenian buildings, while six years later his renditions of traditional houses from Mt. Pelion and the city of Kastoria were published by the Greek Folk Art Association. In 1949, he worked under Pikionis for the Ministry of Housing and Reconstruction in the design of new buildings for the city of Piraeus, which had suffered extensive damage during WWII.
In 1972, the Technical University of Athens published a collection of 18 of Engonopoulos's Greek Houses, including La Synagogue de Halkida. As noted by his first wife, artist Nelli Andrikipoulou, "these works were such accurate representations and, at the same time, personal interpretations of reality that Dimitris Pikionis justly called them 'psychographs of buildings'. They truthfully reflect Engonopoulos's inner beauty and graciousness. "1 Here, he portrays the Jewish Synagogue of the town of Chalkis on the island of Euboea, a historic building destroyed in a devastating fire in 1854 and totally reconstructed a year later with funds provided by Sophie de Marbois-Lebrun, Duchess of Plaisance.
1 : N. Andrikopoulou, "Unknown Aspects in the Life and Work of Nikos Engonopoulos" [in Greek], Lexi magazine, no.77, September 1988, p. 654.
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