Yannis Pappas

Yannis Pappas was born in Constantinople in 1913. After the Asia Minor Catastrophe of 1922, his family settled in Athens. He studied at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1930 to 1932. In 1937 he received a gold medal at the Exposition Internationale in Paris. He held his first solo show in Alexandria in 1950, where he had been living since 1945 while serving in the city’s Higher Naval Command. During his time in Egypt, he studied ancient art and monuments. In 2006 the NBG Cultural Foundation (MIET) organized a solo exhibition of his drawings from this period. He was appointed professor at the Athens School of Fine Arts in 1953, where he taught until 1978, serving as dean from 1959 to 1969. In 1977 he edited Texts on Art (reissued by Nefeli, 1993), and in 1988 Ikaros published his poetry collection Symmikta, 1967 – 1977. In 1978 he represented Greece at the Venice Biennale and in 1980 was elected a full member of the Academy of Athens. In 1992 the National Gallery in Athens organized a retrospective of his work. One of Greece’s most prolific sculptors, he created monuments, statues, busts, and figures of politicians, benefactors, generals, sculptors, painters, and poets. He died in Athens in 2005.