Alecos Fassianos

(Greek, 1935-2022)

Le Cavalier blanc

Footnotes

Expositions
Thessaloniki, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, A. Fassianos, Paintings 1953-1993, September 1993, no. 115 (listed, p. 198, and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, p. 153).
Athens, National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Fassianos, Mythologies of Everyday Life, retrospective exhibition, November 24, 2004 - February 28, 2005, no. 120 (illustrated in the exhibition catalogue, p. 150).

Littérature
A. Fassianos, card booklet, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, 1993 (illustrated).
Erourem magazine, no. 4., March 1996, p. 107 (illustrated).

Captured in sharp profile and set against a solid background that accentuates his heroic scale, Fassianos's horseback rider is remoulded into an archetypal figure echoing the timeless symbolism of ancient Greek vase iconography. "As in ancient pottery, his figures are captured in an eternal contre-jour which renders them both precise and timeless. These figures inhabit a land which might well be Greece, a totally luminous and airy land, an Aeolian land. The wind which tosses the hair of Fassianos's figures is the same wind which pervades Homer's epics and fills Odysseus's sails on his way to meet the Sirens."¹

According to Koichi Tanikawa, one of Japan's most vibrant artists, Fassianos's appeal lies in the fact that his work makes one imagine a life with warm, southern sunshine and carefree, leisurely pleasure. And these are the effects also found in Picasso at Antibes, Bonnard at Le Cannet, and Dufy in Nice."<sup>2

1</sup> J. Lacarriere, A Shadow Play in Fassianos - Mythologies of Everyday Life, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens 2004, p. 24.
² K. Tanikawa, "A Grecian Smile" in Fassianos Drawings, Adam editions, Athens 1994, p. 24.