The Fassianos Universe
Working in both Greece and abroad, the prolific Greek painter and sculptor Alekos Fassianos (1935-2022) created some of the most recognisable images of 20th-century Greek art. You’ve probably already come across one of his brightly coloured paintings featuring brushed cupids, birds and bicycle riders, in deep tones of red and blue often dashed with gold. Born and raised in Athens, the late artist had a deep love for his city and always used it as a point of inspiration for his work. In this short guide, we explore downtown Athens through the artist’s eyes, following a series of public murals and sculptures he created that invite us to see the city in a different light—his own.
Moving between Paris and Athens for most part of his life, Fassianos exhibited at major museums and galleries across the world, and in 2004 the National Gallery in Athens held a major retrospective of his work. His influence however stretches beyond the ivory towers of fine art and all the way to the field of pop culture: when you enter a lobby, office space or living room in Athens, chances are there’s a Fassianos poster on a wall somewhere. A couple of his paintings even made an appearance in an episode of American sitcom Golden Girls (it’s season 2, episode 8, in case your curiosity was piqued).
The great Greek artist Alekos Fassianos.
Courtesy: Louisa Nicolaidou / Courtesy of Alekos Fassianos Estate
"Phryne with birds," 1986
Courtesy: Alekos Fassianos Estate
Fassianos grew up in the area of Agios Pavlos, not far from Metaxourgio. His childhood coincided with the interwar period and the turbulent 1940s, a time when Athens looked completely different to what it does today. Streets were lined with low, neoclassical town houses, each with its own quiet backyard, and neighbourhoods still had dozens of small shops and artisans that kept the streets lively throughout the day. Fassianos grew up in one such house, and it was this humble and peaceful childhood of another time that set the tone for almost the entirety of his work. His family home in Agios Pavlos is today the Alekos Fassianos Museum, which opened in early 2023 (see more below).
Throughout his career, Fassianos sought inspiration in folk and classical Greek art. And even when his subject was life in modern cities, he transformed this context in an almost mythical setting, perhaps with what could be seen as a nostalgic sentiment for a simpler life and innocent years before the mass urbanisation of Athens. In his work he constantly negotiates his relationship with the city, his memories, and his artistic sensibility vis-á-vis the city’s rapid change throughout the 1960s. The result is a diverse vocabulary of visual symbols—people, mythical figures, animals, plants, insects—that is often referred to as the "Fassianos Universe".
A Total Artistic Worldview
Being the ever-curious and creative person he was, Alekos Fassianos loved to work with a wide range of artistic media. He painted canvases, as well as some bigger-than-life murals. He made countless lithographs, drawings, and posters, and worked with metalsmiths to create bronze sculptures. He even enjoyed making furniture for his own home. Fassianos also wrote a series of books, where he recorded his memoirs from old Athens, as well as his artistic principles. In his mind there was no distinction between what we call fine art and functional art; instead, he believed that art should be all around us and enjoyed at all times and not only within the walls of a gallery or in the form of a rare masterpiece.
His ideas about a completely predesigned urban environment were demonstrated in the book Gia Mia Anarchi Poli (For An Unregulated City, 2004), which he co-authored with architect Tassis Papaioannou. In the book’s preface, Fassianos deplores the rough-and-tumble character of modern Athens, where one can see “tall buildings next to low ones… a mix and match of different styles and opinions.” He and Papaioannou present drafts and drawings with a new approach to the Athenian public space, where a harmonious visual result would be achieved at every scale, from grand architectural facades and street-planning to bus stops, benches, and signage. In this book we can see Fassianos’ imagination applied to an urban scale, and his so-called universe coming to life in order to create a total environment for everyday life.
Fassianos employed his signature style to his sculptures as well.
Photo: Paris Tavitian / Courtesy of Alekos Fassianos Estate
Fassianos also designed marvellous pieces of furniture.
Courtesy: Alekos Fassianos Estate
The drafts and ideas contained within Anarchi Poli were never realised at large, but Fassianos was keen to apply his concepts on various spaces and objects he created for himself and his family. In terms of architecture, the building for the Fassianos Museum, designed by architect and close friend Kyriakos Krokos and created with the help of Fassianos, is a mere example of how he wanted to incorporate artistic elements within the building itself. He designed patterns and mosaics in the concrete before it was cast, and created all the details himself, down to the door handles and ventilation grilles; especially the facade is carefully crafted to be friendly, human, and easy on the eye.
For his own home in the neighbourhood of Papagou, Fassianos created another such total environment, where he designed every piece of furniture himself (he detested mass-produced things in general) and added custom pigments to the mortar on the walls instead of painting them over. The Alekos Fassianos Estate has made most of the late artist’s design work available to the public, in collaboration with Athens-based Carwan Gallery, as a way of introducing more people to this otherwise unknown part of his creative work.
Public Art by Alekos Fassianos you Can Visit
In terms of public space, Fassianos has had several opportunities to embed his ideas within the urban environment, thanks to commissions he received over the years for public sculptures. Most of these commissions resulted in artworks, sculptures and murals that are now part of the city and the flow of life on its streets. Others are functional in nature, much in the vein of his Anarchi Poli ideations. Here’s a list of public artworks by Alekos Fassianos in Athens.
