Kyriakos Katzourakis

Kyriakos Katzourakis (Greek: Κυριάκος Κατζουράκης 1944, Athens - 22 October 2021) was a painter, scenographer and writer. In 1968 he was awarded the Partheni painting prize. He was born in Athens in 1944. At the age of six he was orphaned by his mother and because his father was politically persecuted, he was placed in an orphanage. He studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts with teacher G. Moralis and scenography at the workshop of V. Vassiliadis. He continued his studies in London at St Martin's School of Art and Croydon School of Art where he studied printmaking and screen printing. During his stay in England he studied the work of Theophilos, Tsarouhis and Kontoglou. From 1972 to 1985 he lived and worked in England. In 1979 he represented Greece at the Sao Paulo Biennale and in 1980 at the 11th Paris Biennale. His painting is anthropocentric and connects Greek history with contemporary social reality. It has a scenographic arrangement and strong influences from the figures of Tsarouhis and the chiaroscuro of Caravaggio. He has had many painting exhibitions, individual and group, in Greece and abroad. His wife and companion in his life was the actress Katia Gerou. In 1968, he participated as an actor in the award-winning film by Theo Kierion Municipality, which referred to the well-known "Polk case". In 1972, he did the sets for the film The Consul of Anna by Pantelis Voulgaris and designed the costumes for the theatrical performance of the play Days of '36 by Theodoros Angelopoulos. In 1976 he attended film courses at the London Film School. Since 1986 he has lived permanently in Greece and collaborated with G. Lazani in the Art Theater. He was a founding member of the "New Greek Realists" group and of the European Union of Artists EUROPA 24. In 1995 he founded the "Art Group" which aims to connect painting with the other arts: theater, music, photography and cinema. In 2003, he made his first visual film, The Road to the West, which won the First National Award for Best Documentary as well as the FIPRESCI International Critics Award. The film travels to the biggest festivals, while his film Sweet Memory (2005) participated in the Montreal International Festival. In the same year he was elected a professor at the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Died aged 77 on 22 October 2021