Nikos Engonopoulos

Born in Athens in 1907, he studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts from 1932 to 1938, with Konstantinos Parthenis and Dimitrios Biskinis. He apprenticed with Photis Kontoglou and collaborated with Dimitris Pikionis. He is recognized as the pioneering figure of Surrealism in Greece. In 1938 he presented tempera paintings of old houses in Western Macedonia at the Stratigopoulou Gallery, and in the same year he published his first poetry collection, Do Not Speak to the Driver. He held his first solo exhibition in November 1939 at the home of the poet and critic Nikolaos Calas. He was a founding member of the Armos group (1949). He represented Greece at the 27th Venice Biennale (1954) and at the São Paulo Biennial (1955). In 1963 the Athens Technological Institute hosted his solo exhibition. From 1945 to 1973 he taught freehand drawing, stage design, and art history at the National Technical University of Athens. In 1972 the NTUA University Press published Greek Houses, a volume with eighteen of his paintings. In 1983 the National Gallery in Athens organized a major retrospective of his work. He illustrated his own poetry books and other publications. As a stage designer, he worked with Karolos Koun and Rallou Manou. He died in Athens in 1985.