Two Greek institutions with a major presence in cultural affairs, the Panayotis & Effie Michelis Foundation and the J. F. Costopoulos Foundation, embark on their first collaboration by co-signing the exhibition of works by painter Eurydice Costopoulos (1907-1980), at the same time wishing to pay tribute to her son, Yannis Costopoulos. Aside from his role at the helm of Credit Bank and later of Alpha Bank, Yannis Costopoulos was among the earliest and most faithful trustees of the Michelis Foundation.
The important initiative of the Panayotis & Effie Michelis Foundation to promote the work of Greek women artists gives the opportunity to present the oeuvre of Eurydice Costopoulos next to that of other female artists of the post-war period. It was certainly not the painter’s intention to be part of the avant-garde movements that reached Greece, if belatedly; her own aim was the sheer joy of creating.
She painted all the time, and her style changed and matured over the years and as her confidence in her brush grew stronger. The small dimensions of her works, the absence of drawing in many cases and the use of hardboard as a durable surface suggest that most probably she painted out in the open. In her early, cautious attempts she paints landscapes and houses, a few compositions with human figures, women at work and some still lifes with flowers and implements. Later she turns to natural landscapes, and her gaze alters with time. Hydra, Mytilene (mostly olive groves), Molyvos, Kavouri, Cyclades, Ypati, Daphni, the National Garden and the Acropolis are some of her identifiable landscapes, but most of the time she works within nature, at the point where the green of vegetation meets the ochre of the beaches and the deep blue of the sea. Her personal idiom remained relatively stable, while the number of works shows that painting was essential to her.
The works in the exhibition at Α49 Art Space in Kalamata come from private collections and from the Art Collections of Alpha Bank and the J. F. Costopoulos Foundation.
