“Yannis Gaitis- Retrospective exhibition: 100 years since his birth”

An exhibition that marks a milestone in the history of the Municipal Art Gallery of Thessaloniki comes into being this October. Its aim is to honor the pioneering Greek visual artist Yannis Gaitis, who was born 100 years ago.

The project is realized with the invaluable contribution of institutions and private collectors (Alpha Bank Art Collection, National Bank Art Collection, Piraeus Bank Art Collection, Art Collection of the Cultural Foundation of the National Bank of Greece, Collection of the Teloglion Fine Arts Foundation of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, G. Vogiatzoglou Art Gallery, Gerovasileiou Wine Museum, MOMus – Museum of Contemporary Art – Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections) and with the unwavering support of his daughter, Mrs. Loretta Gaïtis.

The exhibition aspires to offer the city’s audience a unique experience of acquaintance and contact with both well-known and lesser-known works of this great Greek artist, as well as objects and archival material.

Special thanks are due to ERT SA ARCHIVE and the Archive Director, Mr. Vasilis Alexopoulos, as well as to the Contemporary Greek Art Institute.

Yannis Gaitis was born in Athens in 1923, where he died very prematurely, leaving behind an enormous body of work, an inexhaustible legacy. With studies at the Athens School of Fine Arts and later in Paris, he explored contemporary art movements, always keeping his gaze on international developments. Working relentlessly, he sought his personal idiom, his own language, which gradually took shape and solidified in the figures which are so familiar to all of us: the little people. Yet, it goes beyond that. His work is a journey of personal exploration and endless evolution. Up until the end. And always with a focus on the human being.

It would be impossible for the current exhibition to encompass the entirety of Yannis Gaitis’s work.

After all, he was incredibly prolific, versatile, and inventive until the very end. The rationale remains the presentation of selected works from institutions and private collectors, including objects-toys and other creations from various phases of his artistic journey. It was deemed necessary to make a special mention of specific tribute exhibitions and events that are connected to him and his work and were presented in Thessaloniki in the past.

Photo 1. Le Pélérinage à Lourdes, 1969, Acrylic on canvas, 146 x 113.5 cm, Private Collection of Eirene Panagopoulou.

Photo 2. Untitled 02, 1966, Oil on canvas, 130 x 97 cm, Private Collection of Eirene Panagopoulou.

Photo 3. The Newlyweds, Oil, 30 x 40 cm, Collection of Dimitris Toli.