Thanos Tsingos

A painter, architect, and stage designer, he was born in Eleusis in 1914. He studied architecture at the National Technical University of Athens (1931–36) and practiced architecture from 1937 to 1939. During World War II he served in the Middle East with the Allied forces (1941–44). While in Egypt he was imprisoned and sentenced to death, but he was granted a pardon and released in early 1946—an experience recounted in journalist Andreas Nenedakis’s book "The Painter Tsingos in War and Prison" (1965). After his release he worked briefly for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA). In 1947, he spent six months in Brazil working in the architectural practice of Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer at the recommendation of Le Corbusier. In 1948 he made Paris his permanent home, and after passing through several architectural practices he abandoned architecture to devote himself entirely to stage design and painting. In 1949, with his wife, the actress Christina Mavroidis (1920–1973), he purchased the Théâtre de la Gaîté-Montparnasse, where they staged avant-garde productions.

He first exhibited his paintings in 1950 at the Galerie du Siècle, and in 1953 he held his first solo exhibition at Paul Facchetti’s gallery, the same dealer who had introduced Jackson Pollock to Europe the previous year. In the following years he collaborated with leading galleries of the time, including Kléber, Iris Clert, and Hanover. In 1957 he was included by Michel Seuphor in the "Dictionary of Abstract Painting". From the mid-1950s he began visiting Greece with increasing frequency, and during his years in Athens (1961–65) he gave lectures and held three solo exhibitions (Architectural Association, Eleusis Cultural Club and Zygos Gallery). Two months after his death on January 26, 1965, a memorial exhibition was organized in his honor at the Athens Technological Institute. Retrospectives of his work were later presented at the National Gallery in Athens (1980), the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1980), and the Eleusis Cultural Center (2005).