Xenakis Kosmas (1925 - 1984)

Born in Brăila, Romania in 1925, he arrived in Greece in 1935 to attend the Anargyrios & Korgialenios School of Spetses. He studied architecture at the NTUA (1942-1948), attended the preparatory year of the ASFA (1942-1943) and apprenticed himself to Yannis Tsarouchis. In 1955 he went to Paris on a French state scholarship to study materials and building techniques at the CSTB Research Centre. He worked as architect and urban planner in various parts of the world, mainly in collaboration with the Doxiadis firm (1956-1972). A Ford Foundation grant enabled him to travel in America (1970-1971), visit major museums and study the contemporary American art.
His early paintings are representational, with clear influences from Tsarouchis, and his subjects are portraits, genre scenes, interiors, allegorical and mythological themes. Gradually he turns to geometric abstraction, obviously influenced by his involvement in architecture, and thus becomes one of the pioneers of modern art in Greece. The geometric balance in his compositions combines with the presence of strong colours in rhythmic succession. His sculpture evolves in parallel and is often of a monumental nature; he creates reliefs and complexes from concrete, marble and polyester for public buildings, blocks of flats and private houses in Greece and abroad.
In the late 1960s, alongside his purely visual and architectural work he began to develop his Polytechnon projects — performances in which painting and sculpture combined with dance and theatre, with which he took part in the International Week of Contemporary Music in 1968 and 1971.
He was a member of the Armos group (1949-1961) and a founding member of Art Group α’ (1961-1967). He published texts on art, urban planning and the environment in specialist periodicals, and was a collector of folk art and traditional objects.
He presented his work in solo exhibitions, starting in 1957 at the Payne Gallery, and participated in dozens of group exhibitions in Greece and abroad — the Biennale of Alexandria (1965), the exhibition Tre Grekiska Utstallningar (Stockholm 1978), Europalia (Brussels 1982), etc. In 1968 he refused to represent Greece in the Biennale of Venice and Sao Paolo, because of the Colonels’ Junta. He died in Athens in 1984. Posthumous retrospective exhibitions of his work were organised in 1990 (National Gallery), 2002 (Academy of Athens) and 2015 (Benaki Museum).