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Lot 5^AR

Diamantis Diamantopoulos
(Greek, 1914-1995)
Student 44.5 x 32 cm.

The Greek Sale

26 November 2013, 14:00 GMT

London, New Bond Street

Sold for £37,500 inc. premium

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Diamantis Diamantopoulos (Greek, 1914-1995)

Student
signed in Greek (upper right)
tempera on card
44.5 x 32 cm.

Footnotes

Painted: 1937-1949.

PROVENANCE:
Private collection, Athens.

LITERATURE:
Diamantis Diamantopoulos, Exhibition catalogue, National Gallery - Alexandros Soutzos Museum, Athens 1978 (illustrated).

Wearing the ubiquitous student cap embroidered with the image of an owl -a classic symbol of learning, knowledge and wisdom, Diamantopoulos's young Greek conveys a deep sense of robustness, monumentality and inner dignity. Radically simplified and captured in burnished browns, lush greens and sparkling whites against a vibrant wine-red background, this entrancing portrait relies on purely formal and pictorial means to capture the eye and provoke the viewer's emotional response.

As noted by art critic E. Ferentinou, "Diamantopoulos's 1937-1949 output is dominated by intense black contours that envelop every shape in the composition. Thus, he avoids tonal gradations while safeguarding local hues from bleeding into the adjoining ones. A brilliant draughtsman, the artist succeeds in rendering volume using a two-dimensional approach, without descriptive details and chiaroscuro effects. By means of a few eloquent and expressive curved or straight lines and with wise distortions, he effortlessly draws his human subjects and their surroundings."¹

Echoing the two-dimensionality of ancient Greek vase painting, the schematisation of folk art and the frontality of Byzantine icon painting, while drawing from such modern art sources as fauvism and cubism, The student is invested with an archetypal quality that defies time and space limitations. As noted by Professor C. Christou, "Diamantopoulos's insistence on the human figure may originate in the humanistic tradition of Greek art, but his art ventures beyond the typically Greek towards the collective and universal."²

¹. E. Ferentinou, The Painting Adventure of Diamantis Diamantopoulos [in Greek], To Trito Mati magazine, no.4, April-December 1978, p. 20.
². C. Christou, Diamantis Diamantopoulos [in Greek] in Diamantis Diamantopoulos, exh. cat., Athens Academy, Athens 2001.

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A Greek icon with depiction of St. Isidor from Chios. Tempera on wooden panel. Second half-19th century. 49 x 35 cm.

Diamantis Diamantopoulos
(Greek, 1914-1995)
Student 44.5 x 32 cm.