A painting by the renowned Greek painter Yiannis Tsarouchis was sold for over $600,000 (over 571,000 euros) at an auction in Paris, setting a new record and making it the most expensive work of the Greek modernist painter ever sold.
The painting known in French as “Jeune homme posant comme Eros avec une chaise anglaise” (“Young Man Posing Like Eros With an English Chair”) was sold at Bonham’s Greek Sale in collaboration with Art Expertise. It was the most successful artwork of the auction, with the auction price surpassing the expectations of experts, further establishing Yiannis Tsarouchis‘ fame as a leading Greek artist.
The oil-on-canvas painting dates back to the 1960s (between 1962-1965). At that time, Tsarouchis produced various international exhibitions, and in 1965, the Claude Bernard Gallery in Paris invited him to participate in a group exhibition with a portrait. Picasso, Chagall, Modigliani and other world-famous painters also participated.
In the summer of 2023, Tsarouchis’ painting, “Mais” (“May”), was sold for $510,000 (over 475,000 euros) in a three-day auction at Zappeion Hall in Athens. A year earlier, “La guarde oubliee” (“The Forgotten Guard”), another iconic painting of Tsarouchis, was sold for $460,000 (441,375 euros), also at Bonhams Greek Sale.
Last week’s Paris auction featured the works of other prominent Greek artists, including ones by Yiannis Moralis and Nikos Eggonopoulos, raising over three million dollars.
Yiannis Tsarouchis, a unique modernist painter
Yiannis Tsarouchis was born in the Athenian port of Piraeus in 1910 and was one of the leading painters of the Generation of the ’30s. Known for his striking, colorful depictions of young Greek men, especially sailors. He has created some of the country’s most iconic artworks, which catapulted him to international fame.
Utilizing dominant themes and trends common throughout European painting at the time, Tsarouchis injected elements from his own perspective as a Greek artist, creating an entirely new aesthetic.
His style was both distinctly modern and yet distinctly Greek and featured elements of ancient Greek art, Byzantine painting and European modernism. As his work contains many homoerotic elements, Tsarouchis has also become an iconic figure in the Greek LGBT community, though he was never entirely open about his sexuality during his lifetime.
“I love to paint naked bodies,” Tsarouchis once said, “because this is how someone can understand the psychological geometry of a human.”
Tsarouchis died in 1989. Before his death in 1982, the Yiannis Tsarouchis Foundation was established in Athens, housed in a building that the artist himself designed. This was where he had also lived. Some of his most prominent artworks are displayed in the building, which the Greek government has designated as a landmark.
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