Spyros Vassiliou

Possibly, Athens, Stratigopoulou Gallery, Individual Exhibition of the Artist, 1929
Athens, Pan-Hellenic Exhibition, 1930, no. 19
Athens, National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Vassiliou Retrospective Exhibition, 1975 
Athens, National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Vassiliou 1928-1978, 1978
Athens, National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Painting  1930-1940, 1981
Athens, Aenaon Art Centre, The Thirties Generation, 1994
Athens, Municipal Gallery of Athens, The City of Athens by Spyros Vasiliou, 1995
Thessaloniki, Dimitria, Retrospective, 1995

Manos Kalligas, Lights and Shadows, Athens, 1969, p. 40, illustrated
Dimitris Papastamos, Painting 1930-40, Athens, 1981, p. 123, illustrated
Atelier Spyros Vassiliou, ed., Guide to the Spyros Vasiliou Museum, 2004, p. 27, illustrated
 

The present work is one of the most important works by Vassiliou to appear at auction. Painted circa 1930, it illustrates a sunny day on the bustling Athens boulevard, Patission Street (now known as 28^th of October Street). Running through Athens centre, this street is one of the major arteries of the city, and the location of notable buildings such as the National Archaeological Museum, the Athens Polytechnic and Maria Callas' former home.  

An early work by Vassiliou, Patission Street, Athens is a celebration of Greece, a lifelong inspiration for Vassiliou and the driving force behind his search for a national art. Vassiliou's love affair with Athens began with his arrival in the early 1920s to attend the Athens School of Fine Arts. He would have frequently witnessed the vibrancy and dynamism of this urban thoroughfare, and the present work may have captured the attention of the critics along with other works in his first exhibition at the Stratigopoulou Gallery in 1929. In 1930 Vassiliou was awarded the Benaki Prize of the Athens Academy, enabling him to travel to Europe and exposing him to an alternative aesthetic that would inform his blossoming perception of Greek modernism.

One of the founding members of the Omni Techni group of Greek artists, Vassiliou would additionally become a highly-respected stage and costume designer, a talent for which is foreshadowed in the dynamic composition and elaborate everyday detail seen in the present work.