Lot 13: House by the sea 37 x 57 cm.

House by the sea signed 'M. Economou' (lower right) oil on canvas 37 x 57 cm.

37 x 57 cm

A. Kouria, Michalis Economou 1884-1933, Adam editions, Athens 2001, no. 63, p. 254 (listed), pp. 100-101 (illustrated).

Private collection, Athens.

Featured as a two-page illustration in A. Kouria's monograph on the artist -a clear indication of the importance attached to it, House by the sea is a quintessential Economou, this true master of early 20th c. Greek art whose signature style, as noted by Professor A. Kotidis, "is unique in European art."¹ Delightfully reflected on still waters and captured in glowing, highly textured curvilinear forms and subtle tonalities, a humble seaside dwelling with a red tent, strongly reminiscent of the painter's Dreaming house in the collection of the Averoff Museum in Metsovo, is stripped from its descriptive role in order to reveal its expressive potential and transform into a lyrical image of subjective truth. The motif of the house reflected on water is a favourite and recurrent theme throughout Economou's oeuvre, echoing distant memories marked by early experiences and visual recollections.² "The coexistence of the man-made/solid with the natural/liquid provides the painter a bipolarity that allows him to express his psychological state. He seeks equilibrium in his pictorial world, the same way he tries to find a balance between security and uncertainty in his private life."³ While displaying his ability to transform ordinary subjects into evocative visions of humble monumentality, the artist is also concerned with the harmonious incorporation of the human presence into the whole -a female figure on the right walking along the waterline and an elusive silhouette suggested rather than depicted on the doorway under the red tent. He is interested in the spatial relationship between figure and surrounding space, and the pictorial unity of the figure and its environment. This need to unite figures and surroundings into a cohesive and meaningful whole (a lifelong preoccupation of the artist) dictated a uniform handling of energetic brushwork throughout the picture plane in the vein of many Pissaro landscapes (compare Chestnut Trees at Louveciennes, private collection, New York). ¹. A. K(otidis) in Dictionary of Greek Artists [in Greek], vol. 3, Melissa editions, Athens 1999, p. 349. ². See A. Kouria, Michalis Economou [in Greek], Adam editions, Athens 2001, pp. 27-28. ³. A. K(otidis), pp. 350-351.