Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas

Greek artist
Nikos Hadjikyriakos Ghikas (Νίκος Χατζηκυριάκος–Γκίκας; February 26, 1906 – September 3, 1994), also known as Nikos Ghika, was a leading Greek painter, sculptor, engraver, writer and academic. He was a founding member of the Association of Greek Art Critics, AICA Hellas, International Association of Art Critics. He studied ancient and Byzantine art as well as folk art due to his adoration for the Greek landscape. During his youth he was exposed in Paris to the avant garde European artistic trends and he gained recognition as the leading Greek cubist artist. His aim was to focus on the harmony and purity of Greek art and to deconstruct the Greek landscape and intense natural light into simple geometric shapes and interlocking planes. His works are featured in the National Gallery (Athens), the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Tate Gallery in London, the Metropolitan Museum of New York and in private collections worldwide.

Hadjikyriakos Ghikas was born in Athens on 26 February, 1906. His father, the admiral Alexandros Hadjikyriakos, and his mother Princess Eleni Ghika both played an important role in the Greek War of Independence of 1821. He first exhibited his artwork when he was 17 in 1923 at the Société des Artistes Indépendants (Salon des Indépendants) and not long afterwards took part in several group exhibits at the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des surindépendants. and in the international exhibitions of Paris and Venice. A year later in 1935 he shared an exhibition again with Michael Tombros along with painter Gounaro, an event which, just like his previous shared exhibit in 1928 considerably stirred the athenian art world. Moreover, he arranged a further retrospective, this time containing a hundred of his paintings, at the Whitechapel Gallery in London, in 1968 and in 1970 he was awarded The First Prize in Fine Arts by the Academy of Athens (modern) which in 1973 nominated him to a full membership. which focuses on the friendship of Ghika, the artist John Craxton, and the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor; their shared love of Greece was fundamental to their work.

when he was younger, he dipped his toes at something approaching abstract art, after which he progressively abandoned his inclination to splinter his subject into separate components and reconstruct it based on his concept of plasticity. Because of this he begins to slowly come to terms with all that is really around him.