Winter Hydra

Pericles Byzantios was born in Athens in 1893. Father of the painter Konstantinos (Dickos) Byzantios, he began his studies in Munich, but quickly abandoned them to continue in Paris at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts. In 1917 he returned to Greece and in the period 1920-1922 he served as a military painter along with Spyros Papaloukas and Pavlos Rodokanakis. A founding member of the "Art Group", he organized with other painters the "Atelier" Artists' Club and in 1934 he founded, together with A. Stylou, the first private painting school in Athens. In 1939 he was appointed director of the branch of the School of Fine Arts of Hydra and Delphi and from 1945 he took over exclusively the management of the Hydra branch. He was systematically involved in set design, executing a series of scenery and in 1930 he was appointed set designer of the National Theatre, while at the same time he sketched in newspapers and made cartoons under the pseudonym Skopelos. The subject matter of his works includes a wide range of themes: portraits, actors, landscapes, which he generally rendered in a realistic, impressionistic mood, which he gradually abandoned in his works and developed a personal idiom. He presented his work in solo exhibitions in Greece, while he took part in many group exhibitions, among them: Venice Biennale 1934, Exposition Internationale (Paris 1937), Grekisk Konst, (Konstakademien, Stockholm 1947) etc.