Lot 25: Yannoulis Halepas , Greek 1851-1938 katerina plaster

plaster

h.: 49cm., 19¼in.

Athens, National Sculpture Gallery, Yiannoulis Halepas: Retrospective Exhibition, February - September 2007

Marinos Kalligas, Yannoulis Halepas, Athens, 1972, p. 58, discussed; p. 80, catalogued; no. 14, illustrated (as Catherine, la soeur de Halepas)

Estate of the artist
Private Collection, Athens

Executed circa 1876-77, this bust is of Katerina, Halepas' sister.

Halepas made many portrait busts in his lifetime, twenty-seven of which are still in existence and recorded. The present work is one of only three known portrait busts from his first stylistic period completed soon after his return from Munich, and prior to his nervous breakdown and hospitalisation. The sensitivity with which the artist intimates the psyche of his sitters, as exemplified by the present work, can be attributed to his '... facility for probing the souls of his subjects and expressing either depth or emptiness' (Marinos Kalligas, Yannoulis Halepas, Athens, 1972, p. 58). That affected his work for the rest of his life.

Yannoulis Halepas was the son of a marble cutter and sculptor from Tinos, which for centuries had been home to the best craftsmen and sculptors in Greece. He left Tinos in 1869 to study sculpture at the School of Fine Arts in Athens under Leonidas Drossis, and from 1873 to 1876 studied at the Akademie der bildenden Künste in Munich under Max von Windmann, on a scholarship from the religious foundation of the Annunciation of Tinos.

Halepas' works created at the onset and after his illness established him as one of the most important sculptors of his generation. While his themes remained essentially the same, his style changed dramatically. He produced rough clay moulds and plaster casts rather than highly finished marbles, and became more interested in conveying the inner strength of works than the surface sculptural qualities to create emotionally charged works of art.