Group of four figures
Avramidis Joannis (1922-2016)
1959-1960 | 240 x 60 cm
Bronze
Museum of Contemporary Art
MCA.SMCA.C539
Donation of the artist
ARTWORK DETAILS
Type: Sculpture
Subject: Composition, Sculpture
Art techniques: Sculpture
ARTWORK DESCRIPTION
At the core of Ioannis Avramidis' art is the creative interplay with both the past (archaic sculpture) and contemporary artistic pursuits. Paying special attention to technique and materials, he transforms the human form into a kind of cylindrical column with curves, protrusions and hollows, horizontal striations and parallel cuts. Symmetry, abstraction, the density of the placement, the harmonious coupling of volumes and the imposition of an organic rhythm contribute to the archetypal character that the sculptor wishes to impart to the form. In the late 1950s, he proceeds to compose multiple forms into a unity, as seen in the work "Group of four figures," retaining the same characteristics and emphasizing the same plastic values. The vertical axes and horizontal cuts he creates give the impression, as with individual figures, that they are constructed from the bottom upwards in layers.
CREATOR
Ioannis Avramidis was born in 1922 in Batumi, on the Black Sea, to Greek parents who had immigrated from Turkey to Russia. From 1937 to 1939, he studied at the State School of Arts in Batumi but was forced to interrupt his studies and immigrate with his family to Athens. During the war, he moved to Vienna, where he studied painting (1944-1949) and sculpture (1953-1956) at the Academy of Fine Arts under the tutelage of Robin Christian Andersen and Fritz Wotruba, respectively. Upon completing his studies in 1956, he received the State Prize of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and later the Austrian Prize for Sculpture (1958), the Promotion Prize of the City of Vienna (1961), the Hugo-von-Montfort Prize, the Prize of the Austrian Association of Industrialists, and others. In 1965, he became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, heading the Department of Nude Drawing, and from the following year, he directed the Department of Sculpture for graduates of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, where he taught until 1992. Throughout his artistic career, he received numerous awards for his work, which he presented in solo and group exhibitions internationally. He passed away in Vienna in 2016.