Vlassis Caniaris

Born in Athens in 1928, he studied at the Medical School of the University of Athens from 1945 to 1950 and at the Athens School of Fine Arts from 1950 to 1955. A cosmopolitan artist, he lived in Rome (1956 – 60), Paris (1960 – 67 and 1969 – 72), and Berlin (1973 – 75). He held his first solo exhibition in 1958 at the Zygos Gallery, showing abstract paintings. He then abandoned the traditional stretcher and created “walls,” which referenced wartime Athens, as well as “environments” with mannequins and found objects. In 1963, together with Nikos Kessanlis and Daniil, he presented Three Proposals for a New Greek Sculpture at La Fenice in Venice. He returned to Athens in 1967, and in 1969 he exhibited works with anti-dictatorship content at the Nea Gallery. While in Berlin as a DAAD grantee, he produced a series on migrants from southern Europe, which he showed in German museums (Heidelberg, Ingolstadt, Bochum, Hanover) and at the ICA in London. He returned to Greece in 1975 and was elected professor of painting at the NTUA School of Architecture, where he taught until 1996. In 1980, in collaboration with Bernier Gallery, he presented the environment-exhibition Hélas-Hellas at the former Fix ice plant. He represented Greece at the Venice Biennale in 1988. In 1999 the National Gallery in Athens held a retrospective of his work. He died in Athens in 2011.