Lot 9: Nikolaos Lytras , Greek 1883-1927 the artist in his studio oil on canvas

signed upper right oil on canvas

27 by 41cm., 10½ by 16in.

Athens, National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Nikos Lytras, March - June 2008

Galerie Eliades, Athens
Private Collection, Athens (purchased from the above circa 1965)
Sale: Sotheby's, London, 10 May 2004, lot 6
Purchased by the present owner at the above sale

The Artist in his Studio is a major addition to Lytras' oeuvre and one of the few self-portraits by the artist to appear at auction. Together with Constantinos Parthenis and Constantinos Maleas, Nikolaos Lytras was a pioneer of twentieth-century Greek painting. Like many of his contemporaries, he studied at the Munich academy under Ludwig von Löfftz and Karl von Piloty. The son of Munich master Nikiforos Lytras, his work provided a crucial link between Romanticism and modernism in the development of Greek painting in the early decades of the last century.
'An ability to mould his knowledge of contemporary avant-garde currents from abroad and his excellent technique into an idiom of form entirely his own, enabled him to reach great heights. His oeuvre is characterised by the imposition of colour on form and of the internal element on the external. Lytras opened new pathways and attracted a coterie of younger artists who strove to release Greek painting from the formula of the past' (Chrisanthos Christou, The National Gallery: 19υth and 20υth Century Greek Paintings, Athens, 1992, p. 20). Lytras' absorption of mainstream influences led to a studied avoidance of references to Hellenistic tradition. The broad free brushstrokes and vigorous colouring of the present work exhibits the highly expressive use of pigment and non-illusionistic space that defined Lytras' style.