The Museum
About
As the activities of the foundation ought to preserve the work of the painter, a living core of our cultural life, its main purpose is the permanent exhibition of the work of Jannis Spyropoulos. The first Spyropoulos Museum opened to the public in 1992, two years after the painter's death, after the building was first arranged and his rich archive and artistic material were sorted. The building in Ekali operated until 2006.
During the years of its operation, in addition to the permanent exhibition of the Foundation's collection, it hosted many other events of visual arts, music and speech, which created a new audience for the painter's work. An organized tour of the artist's work retrospectively, travelled to the largest cities of Greece, bringing his work to the most difficult viewers.
The new Jannis Spyropoulos Museum exhibits the collection of the painter's works, periodically or thematically. It exhibits in special exhibitions the work of the painter in conversation with other artists of similar approaches and affinities.
Also in his permanent exhibition he presents extracts from his other collections. Works by young Greek artists, awarded by the Foundation. Works of great Greek sculptors from the personal collection of the artist. Works of great donations to the foundation. Another selected collection of the artist's personal objects.
The perception of wholeness and unity in the presentation of the artist's work is of primary importance in the museological study prepared for the presentation in the new Jannis Spyropoulos Museum. Just as the artist himself imagined a museum in the personal space where he lived and worked, so today his work is surrounded by his life and what he considered important.
Thirty-two years after its foundation, a space is presented as a treasury of ideas and objects that have influenced and continue to influence the contemporary view of aesthetics.
History
The artist imagined and designed the building-home and atelier of Ekali as the future home of his work.
Large halls with innovative sliding wall surfaces were created on the ground floor, while an atrium with excellent lighting housed panels that flipped through like a large book, presenting works from the period 1954-1959.
In his spacious studio, he built warehouses with moving banners in which his works were safely stored. In the garden of the building he exhibited his personal collection of sculptures by Greek artists.
In 1992, two years after his death, his wife Zoe prepared the building and inaugurated the Jannis Spyropoulos Museum in three glorious successive events.
Until 2006, many art and speech events were presented there. Exhibitions and educational programs were hosted, dozens of guided tours to foreign and Greek visitors. The Museum’s audience grew and the fame of Spyropoulos Awards brought the artist to the attention of all the young students of the Schools of Fine Arts in Greece.
Zoe Spyropoulou’s long illness exhausted the events and resources of the Foundation, since she was its source of funding. The building wilted and the public was evacuated. The Foundation’s Board decided to move the institution to the city’s fabric and take it out of the isolation of Ekali and the burden of maintaining an old building-house that was aging.
It was purchased in 2008, by the Spyropoulos Foundation, a beautifully preserved building in Exarchia, next to the Archaeological Museum of Athens.
The budget for its reconstruction into a modern multifaceted cultural space and the implementation studies of an optimistic museological study were completed in 2011 and the financing of the project was organized. The economic crisis in Greece has completely destroyed the plan to reopen the Spyropoulos Museum. The building was occupied and began to fall into disrepair, all funding was withdrawn and the foundation exhausted its resources.
In 2014, with the support of Ion Vorres, a major anniversary retrospective exhibition of Jannis Spyropoulos was organized at the Vorres Museum, commemorating the centenary of his birth.
Since then, a fruitful collaboration between the two institutions began, which has so far presented major events in the artistic life of Athens.
In 2016, the Jannis Spyropoulos Section is inaugurated at the Vorres Museum, with the concession of a large part of the Museum’s Modern Art Gallery.
Works from the Spyropoulos Foundation Collection are presented there in different thematic groups. They are complemented by specialised educational programmes which are developed in the workshops of the Vorres Museum.
The exhibition of the works of Jannis Spyropoulos was fully reopened in 2016, along with all the services offered by the institution under the auspices of the Vorres Museum.
To this day, this collaboration keeps the work of Jannis Spyropoulos alive and relevant to adults and children who visit the Museums of Peania by the thousands.
Thirty years after the foundation’s establishment, the new Jannis Spyropoulos Museum is created.
Exhibitions
Awards 92′, Area Works, Anji Karatza, Pantelis Chandris, Nikos Charalambidis. Jannis Spyropoulos Museum, Ekali.
The Art of the Eskimos, Collection B. M. Museum of Jannis Spyropoulos, Ekali.
Awards 93′, Nikos Artemis, Thalia Chioti. Jannis Spyropoulos Museum, Ekali.
Objects of Folklore Art of Central African Tribes, Collection of Thanos Tzotzos. Jannis Spyropoulos Museum, Ekali.
Retrospective exhibition of Jannis Spyropoulos, Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki.
Αναδρομική έκθεση Γιάννη Σπυρόπουλου, Μακεδονικό Μουσείο Σύγχρονης Τέχνης, Θεσσαλονίκη.
Monemvasia Photography exhibition of the students of the University of La Verne. Jannis Spyropoulos Museum, Ekali.
Awards 94′, Dimitris Tzamouranis, Xenophontas Bitsikas. Jannis Spyropoulos Museum, Ekali.
Two Nights at Luna Park, photography exhibition by Nikos Dimos. Jannis Spyropoulos Museum, Ekali.
Jannis Spyropoulos retrospective exhibition, National Gallery, Athens.
Retrospective exhibition of Jannis Spyropoulos, Municipal Gallery, Rhodes.
Awards 95′, Achilleas Papakostas, Alexandros Pfaff. Jannis Spyropoulos Museum, Ekali.
Retrospective exhibition of Jannis Spyropoulos, Centre of Contemporary Artistic Creation, Lefteris Kanakakis Gallery, Rethymno.
Awards 96′, Painting – Space Works, Dimitra Vatzou, Martha Sakellariou, Dimitris Christidis. Jannis Spyropoulos Museum, Ekali.
Of Greece and Romania, a presentation of the work of ScarlatArion. Jannis Spyropoulos Museum, Ekali.
Awards 97′, Michalis Lagouvardos, Konstantinos Papamichalopoulos. Museum of Jannis Spyropoulos, Ekali. –
Retrospective exhibition of Jannis Spyropoulos, Municipal Gallery, Patras.
Awards 98′, Elias Papailiakis, Andreas Savva. Jannis Spyropoulos Museum, Ekali.
The artists of the Spyropoulos Museum, Building 5, Foundation of the Hellenic World.
Seven of the Awards, Melina Mercouri Cultural Centre, Athens.
Retrospective exhibition Jannis Spyropoulos, the Classic of Abstraction, Municipal Gallery of Chania.
-7+7, National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens. Edited by Anna Kaffetzi.
Ports of Hellenism. The Greek Portography, State Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki.
The Alpha Bank Collection, Greek Art from 1920 to the present day. Benaki Museum, Athens.
Spyropoulos Awards, Nees Morphes Gallery, Athens.
Paris – Athens, 1863-1940, National Gallery of Athens.
The Collage. Detachment, Incorporation, MMST, Thessaloniki, Curated by Th Markoglou.
Samples of Writing, the traces of the gaze, Nees Morfes Gallery, curated by Eleni Plessa, Athens.
Neohellenic Topiography, Theocharakis Foundation, Athens.
50 Years later, Benaki Museum, Athens, curated by Julia Dimakopoulou.
Inserts in Abstract Writing, Institute of Contemporary Greek Art, Athens. Edited by Haris Kannelopoulou.
“Art Deco – Class-Color-Geometry”, Metropolitan College, Maroussi.
“100 Years from the birth of the painter Jannis Spyropoulos. “, Vorres Museum, Peania.
“Night at the Vorres Museum”, Overnight stay with the paintings of Jannis Spyropoulos, Vorres Museum, Peania.
Educational programmes “What is finally happening in ART? , 5 -9 years old.
“2X10+” Jannis Spyropoulos Awards, 2017, Vorres Museum, Peania.
Jannis Spyropoulos, the great of Abstraction, Laskaridou Gallery, Municipality of Kallithea.
Jannis Spyropoulos, Historical Museum of Crete, Heraklion Crete.
“The Greek Icons of Jannis Spyropoulos 1950-1960: a dialogue with his place”. Catalogue publication and design of an educational programme. organization of D. K. E. P. , Aigio.
Tapestry of works by Greek painters, Exhibition/Co-organized by ALPHA BANK-BENAKI MUSEUM, Benaki Museum, Athens.
“Weavings Anew”, MOMus – Museum of Contemporary Art, Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki, Greece.
“Weavings Anew”, Museum of the City of Volos, Volos, Greece.
The Foundation
The non-profit Foundation of Jannis and Zoe Spyropoulou, (established 1.12.90/FEK 711-12.2.90), was founded in order to preserve in time, study, publish, protect and promote in every way the work of the great Greek painter of Abstraction.
The second purpose of the Foundation is the Jannis Spyropoulos Award, an annual award given to two young artists under the age of thirty, with conditions decided by the Board of Directors at regular intervals.
No matter how great an artist’s work is, time can swallow it up despite its importance. Jiannis and Zoe Spyropoulou knew this.
So they designed a monographic museum, and set up a structured body to run it. A cultural organization, valuable for the uniqueness of its Collection and in this way they preserved not only its posterity but also the influence of its entire aesthetic perception.
Its Board of Directors consists of people who recognize and respect the artist and his work. The list of people who participated in it is long, all of them contributed to the work of the Foundation with all their strengths.
The Jannis Spyropoulos Foundation is the only Foundation in our country with a special focus on the movement of Abstraction in Greek art, since Spyropoulos was its international and most important representative.
J. Spyropoulos Αwards
The establishment of the J. Spyropoulos Awards was one of the primary objectives of the Foundation and reflects the intention of its founders and especially the desire of Jannis Spyropoulos to support new artists.
The J. Spyropoulos Awards are awarded annually to two young artists under the age of thirty. For twenty-five years the Awards included cash rewards for the winning artists. Today, the Annual Awards are honorary and offer artists the distinction of belonging to a special group, exposed and studied alongside with the life & works of the J. Spyropoulos.
Visit the following link for more information about the J.Spyropoulos Annual Awards:
Or contact us via email:
Awards:
Educational Programmes
The J. Spyropoulos Museum is visited every year by students of all levels from pre-school age to students of higher education.
Especially for children of pre-school and first school age, the right infrastructure has been created with the appropriate configuration of the space, the appropriate choice of exhibits so that their active participation through dialogue and creative activity is the subject of the workshops.
Getting acquainted with the work of J. Spyropoulos and the processing of the material offered is a pleasant experience, which contributes to their early acquaintance with the world of art and especially the magical world of Abstraction.
The children observe and trace the techniques of the painter, try to penetrate and “see” the subject, solve the puzzles.
The Programmes are addressed to children of pre-school and primary school age and deal with topics related to contemporary art movements (painting and sculpture).
Please contact us for more information about the Museum’s Initiatives:
Educational Programmes, Lectures & Workshops:
Services
Library
The Spyropoulos Foundation contains an important library, specializing in Abstraction as an international movement. There are also many volumes dealing with other sectors of art, catalogues, magazines and so on. This is not a lending library and can be visited (for the present) only by making an appointment by telephone. The library also contains a wealth of archival material on the painter’s work and career.
Archive
The Foundation’s archive is based on the documented catalogue of the works of Jannis Spyropoulos as it was compiled in the doctoral dissertation of Y. Ch. Papaioannou (1922, NTUA). This catalogue numbers the painter’s approximately 1,600 works.
Please contact us for more information about the Museum’s Services:
Archive, Library, Publications, Shop and General Inquiries:
info@spyropoulosfoundation.org