Fassianos himself relates: “For five years I applied myself to drawing ancient heads and nude models. I can’t say I didn’t learn anything from this – quite the opposite.
Our teacher Moralis had an influence on us both as an artist and as a human being. We learned to observe the effects of darkness on light and vice versa as well as how objects changed shape as the light changed. We also learned to compare things. But I was always thinking of saints with their haloes, their staffs, their swords, their varied attire, and the red or white horses that jumped over flame-blowing dragons.
I was thinking less of the Cycladic figurines at the time.
I also liked Japanese art and Indian tantric painting. But I never felt the mysticism. I started painting people again in uniforms and ornaments in gardens. They were unmoving, they were expressionless and held flowers.
Later these small figures of people that I painted in uniforms began to dissolve, to become colored beings with flowers all around, sometimes pleasant looking, sometimes terrifying
And now the ones I paint hold flaming swords like the Byzantine saints. But they are untainted creatures from my imagination, just as they first issued from dark churches. I like red and blue volumes, but not abstraction.
Color should always have meaning!
-Alekos Fassianos, Athens 1964
Colour has its meaning
A FASSIANOS
BORN
1935
National Conservatory of Athens
He studied violin for 12 years.
ATHENS SCHOOL OF FINE ARTS
Yiannis Moralis atelier
IMPORTANT MILESTONES
COMMANDEUR DE L’ORDRE DES ARTS ET DES LETTRES – 2021
Awarder by the Minister of Culture in France Madame Roselyne Bachelot – Narquin
ORDER OF THE ARTS AND LETTER
Awarded Officer by the then French Minister of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand
ORDER OF THE LEGION OF HONOR (Officier des Lettres et des Arts)
Decorated with the Legion of Honor by the President of the French Republic
HONORARY MEMBER
Russian Academy of Arts
RECOGNITION
PUBLICATIONS
EXHIBITIONS
LIMITED REPRODUCTIONS
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The Alekos Fassianos estate is a non-profit civil company founded in 2020 by Alekos Fassianos and his family. It is dedicated to collecting, preserving, protecting, defending by all legal means, exhibiting and interpreting the oeuvre of Alekos Fassianos.
The Alekos Fassianos Museum is set to open its doors to the public on the 26 April 2023.
The Alekos Fassianos Museum is a building jointly conceived and designed by Alekos Fassianos and renowned architect Kyriakos Krokos in the nineties. The idea was to renovate the existing family building located in Metaxourgeio with the vision to house the Alekos Fassianos Collection. This original Athenian polykatoikia was first built in the sixties by the artist’s family with no preoccupation of the architectural canons. The building proved to be an experimental ground for the architectural visions and ideas of Krokos and Fassianos and it illustrates their aesthetic and philosophic principles. The whole space is carved out and remodelled cautiously, using a variety of materials and finishes (concrete, stone, mosaic, brick, plaster) from a color palette of earthly grays, reds and ochres. The original building from the sixties is transformed into a modernist building, which is of significant importance in the architectural map of Athens. It is also one of the few museums in the world in which the complicity between artist and architect underpins the dialogue between the works and the space that houses them. The Museum will organize exhibitions, talks and educational programs for children and families.