Lot 18: GERASSIMOS STERIS (GREEK/AMERICAN, 1898-1987) Dawn signed (lower righ

GERASSIMOS STERIS (GREEK/AMERICAN, 1898-1987) Dawn signed (lower right) oil on canvas 56 x 38 cm.

Provenance Andreas Andonopoulos collection, Patras and Athens. Thence by descent to the present owner. Exhibited Athens, Palais de Versailles, April 14 - May 14 1931, no. 19. Literature Imerisios Typos newspaper, 26.4.1931. 18 Critical Articles on an Exhibition, Athens 1931, p. 47 (mentioned), p. 46 (illustrated). Reprinted in Steris, Panorama editions, 1982, and Steris, Works from the Koutoulakis Collection, exhibition catalogue, Benaki Museum, Athens 2008, p. 370. T. Gorpas, Steris, Panorama Editions, Athens 1982, p. 36 (illustrated). This most pellucid of modern Greek painters also happened to be the most mysterious. 1 O. Elytis Dawn is a fine example of Steris’s enigmatic style, dominated by subdued palette, reductive schematisation of form and fluid quality of the figures. Mysterious imagery, obscure symbols and mythical allusions lend a dream-like ambiance to the work of Gerassimos Steris that create a mysterious world of poetic fantasy. Drawing from the tradition of symbolist painting, early cubism, art nouveau and the luminous metaphysical ensembles of G. de Chirico, his work communicates a lyrical atmosphere of meditation and poetic nostalgia. One of the few instances when modern Greek painting, harmoniously combining familiar symbols with an international expressive vocabulary, acquired a global perspective.2 Steris was one of the first Greek artists to realise that Modern Greek art involved not mere stylistic and formal upgrading but also a tenacious process of ideologically attuning a historic land to the new international climate of cultural consolidation, within which it was obliged to act as a responsible guardian of a global heritage. His first exhibition in Athens (1931) , where the Bonhams lot, Dawn , was included, caused a stir and provoked a heated theoretical debate, illustrating more general views concerning the ideological coordinates of Greek modernism. 1. O. Elytis, 1978 as reprinted in Steris, p. 9. 2. H. Kambouridis-G. Levounis, Electronic Gallery of Modern Greek Art [in Greek], Athens, 1997.