Image: Giorgos Gounaropoulos, Idyll in a Landscape, 1966, oil on canvas, 122 × 170 cm. National Gallery of Athens, donated by the artist (inv. Π.4729)
The National Gallery in Athens has drawn attention to Giorgos Gounaropoulos’s painting ‘Idyll in a Landscape’ of 1966, published to mark the anniversary of the artist’s death in 1977.
The gallery’s own collection record identifies the work as an oil on canvas measuring 122 by 170 centimetres, donated to the museum by the artist himself and held under inventory number Π.4729. The gallery lists Gounaropoulos, who also signed himself Gounaro, with the life dates 1890 to 1977.
Describing the picture, the museum points to linearly rendered figures drawn from the imagery of ancient lekythoi, and characterises the resulting mood as "dreamy and highly lyrical". The painter, who trained in Athens and then in Paris at the Académie Julian and the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, built his reputation in the French capital in the second half of the 1920s before settling permanently in Greece in 1931, and is counted among the artists who brought elements of the international avant-garde into Greek painting.
The item is a collection and anniversary feature rather than notice of a new exhibition. No dates, venue or accompanying programme were announced, and the gallery’s catalogue entry does not state whether the painting is currently on display.
