Lot 32: Lykourgos Kogevinas (Greek 1887-1940)

View of Corfu
signed in greek (lower right)
oil on canvas
70 x 100 cm. (27 1/2 x 39 1/4 in.)

Athens, Kotopouli Museum, 1990.
Volos, Giorgio de Chirico Museum, February 1993.
Rhodes, Municipal Gallery, August 1994.
Corfu, Municipal Gallery, Positions and sides of Greek Painting, June 1998.
Larnaka, Municipal Gallery, August 2001.

Kogevinas had a multi-faceted artistic career as artist-correspondent during the Balkan Wars, as an engraver and illustrator in Paris and Athens, and as a painter. His paintings reveal his deep sensitivity to the subtle values of colour and the importance of composition. Although one of the first Greek artists to embrace impressionism, his paintings and especially his landscapes are more realistic, with overtones of the synthetic symbolism of Puvis de Chavannes. In View of Corfu, the sober colours and simplified forms create a synthesis of design, hinting at, rather than describing in detail, a calm vista.