CONTEMPORARY GREEK ARTISTS

The international secondary literature dealing with Greek art of the last two centuries is far from adequate, and the absence of comprehensive studies in the area is compounded by a lack of even the most cursory biographical information about Greek artists. International publications devote very little space to contemporary Greek artists in particular, and what coverage does exist tends to be uneven and -in several cases- misleading. Convinced that this gap has its roots in a failure on the Greeks side to promote artists systematically and convincingly abroad, we strongly believed that the four-volume Dictionary of Greek Artists (DGA), published by Melissa (1997-2000), should be followed up by the release of an abridged version of the work in English. Such a volume would make the DGAs critical commentaries and systematically compiled data on the most important artists at work in Greece today accessible to art historians and art lovers worldwide. Georgios Ragias of Melissa Publishing House was very enthusiastic about our proceeding with a single user-friendly volume in English. Soon afterward, having undertaken the planning of the work, we found a worthy colleague in Elena Hamalidi. [...] (From the preface, by Katerina Koskina and Evgenios D. Matthiopoulos)