Special Information for the Artist
Athens, January 16, 1893 - Athens, February 9, 1972
Metaimpresionistis Greek painter.
Pericles Vyzantios attended the School of Makris and received his first lessons in painting in the workshop of Evangelos Ioannidis. In 1910, he went to Munich to study law but soon abandoned the capital of Bavaria to study painting in Paris, at the École des beaux-arts and the Académie Julian.
In 1915, he returned to Greece to serve his military service. Due to the events of the season, he remained in the army for seven years, while continuing as far as possible, his artistic activity. In 1916, he opened his own workshop in Athens the same year and made his first solo exhibition. In 1917, he co-founded the group "Art", which aimed to overthrow the conservative academicism, while at the same time he started with the set design.
During the period 1921-1922, followed by the Greek Army in Asia Minor as a martial artist. In 1922, he was the official cartoonist of the Trial of the Six and some of the sketches of this trial were published in the Athenian press.
In 1923, he married Froso Skoumpourdi and was born a year later their first child, Constantine. Along with Fokiona Rok, Miltiadi Malakasi, Kosta Ourani and Dimitri Mitropoulo founded in 1928, the Art Club "Atelier". In 1934, he and the painter Aleka Stylou-Diamantopoulou founded the first free school of painting, which operated successfully until the fall of Greece to the Germans in 1941. In 1936, his involvement with the School of Fine Arts Annex founded in Hydra, which eventually took over the direction (1939). In 1937, he received two national honors: "bronze medal" and "honorary degree". When war broke out in 1940, Pericles Byzantium painted the poster for War Lottery, which is intended to raise money for the families of soldiers.
After the war he showed his work in many solo exhibitions (1948, 1950, 1958, 1964 and 1967). In 1971, he started writing his autobiography, but fell ill and eventually succumbed to his illness before he could complete it. However, the autobiography was finally issued in 1995.
After his death, his daughter, Marilena Liakopoulou donated works by the artist to be exposed permanently to Hydra, the old manor Kountourioti Lazarus. The artist's son, Constantine, or Deacon Byzantium (Athens, 1924 - Mallorca Spain, 10 August 2007) was also a distinguished painter who lived almost permanently in France.
