NIKOS GRIGORAKIS

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biography

The Art Historian Nikos Grigorakis was born to a family, whose roots can be traced well into the 17th century. He studied Law at the Kapodistrian University of Athens, but his love for art prevailed. He founded Yakinthos Gallery in Kifissia in 1979, which for two decades (1979-1999) was one of Greece’s well known and most interesting venues for engravings, promoting such artists as Economides, Galanis, Grammatopoulos, Katraki, Katsoulidis, Kefallinos, Kogevinas, Komianou, Koroyannakis, Mastichiadis, Moschos, Nikolaidi, Orfanos, Papadimitriou, Pascali, Protopatsis, Tassos, Theodoropoulos, Velissaridis, Venturas, Yannoukakis, and Zavitsianos.

With Yakinthos he aimed to propose his own feeling about the engravings and to run a gallery with a ‘European’ sensibility. In due course he discovered a real passion for these, and made it his duty to protect and promote this art form, whose greatness had as of yet remained unrecognized. He managed to inspire the interest for engravings to many collectors. His claim of “lifting Greek Engraving Arts on my shoulders” is widely appreciated by his peers in the arts and the art-loving public. Having faith that this arts today have earned the position they deserve in the Greek art world, Grigorakis founded in Psychiko in 2000 the Museum of Engraving, which houses the Grigorakis Collection.

In conjunction with running the Museum of Engraving, Grigorakis published a large number of books. It is worth mentioning and underlining the book named ‘Livres de Luxe” which was published only in 99 copies and contained a large number of original engravings by important Greek artists (Melissa). He has also written critics on engravings and has offered many entries in the Dictionary of Greek Painters. Furthermore, he has collaborated with newspapers, such as Kathimerini (Epta Imeres) and Vradyni, and with magazines such as Archaeologia, Ikastika, Sylloges and Zygos; and has written many historical, architectural, and folklore articles. His publications (catalogs, essays, albums, studies and over 50 books) form today the basic bibliography of the history of Neo-Hellenic Graphic Arts.

All of the above make the name ‘Nikos Grigorakis’ equivalent to the concept of the History of Neo-Hellenic Art. His contribution to the history of art becomes the reference point in the future of Greek art historians.