PROVENANCE:
Katramatou collection, Athens.
Private collection, Athens.

EXHIBITED:
Athens, ‘Parnassos’ Literary Society Hall, Exhibition of Paintings by Yannis Spyropoulos, December 1-30, 1950 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue).
Athens, National Gallery – A. Soutzos Museum, Yannis Spyropoulos 1912 – 1990, no 86, p. 37 (illustrated in the catalogue)

One of most important paintings from Spyropoulos' 1949-1950 output according to Y. Papaioannou who prepared the artist's monograph, "Boatyard is an evocative work dominated by the forms of two caiques still in the stocks. The progression of planes (shore, sea, background hills, sky) is handled in such a way so as to fully exploit their compositional relation to the two boats, the picture's main focus. Notably, the ascending hillcrest follows the dynamic lines of the two gunwales. Composing his images based on the abrupt juxtaposition of planes and using dynamic vanishing points, the artist seeks a personal expressive language in order to convey his own, heart-felt and comprehensive experience of nature. The element he feels he can take full advantage of is the luminosity of colour, which by itself has the power to entwine forms and areas of colour in a harmonious rhythm. Relying on vertical brushstrokes, the artist fashions surfaces that convey a strong sense of mobility generated by the interplay of chromatic zones intersecting with a series of verticals and diagonals." 1 Boatyard attests to why even before he was awarded at the Venice Biennale in 1960, Spyropoulos was considered one of the most prominent Greek artists of the 20th century.

1 Papaioannou, Yannis Spyropoulos - Monograph [in Greek], doctoral dissertation, Yannis and Zoe Spyropoulos Foundation, Athens 2010, pp. 80, 82.