“John Craxton: A Greek Soul” dedicated exhibition begins at the Benaki Museum

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In the photo of John Craxton, a motorcyclist, against the background of the White Mountains, nothing proves that he is a British painter and in fact one of the important ones. Thick mustache, wellies, strong look, even his locality was Cretan, say those who knew him. Next to the photo is a card he had sent in 1954 from England to his friend, Dino Mastropetro, in Poros. “I am very sad. England is a horror. All fog, cloudy, rain. “I will die without sun for three months,” she confesses.

With these statements – documents, the big retrospective exhibition at the Benaki Museum on Koumbari Street, “John Craxton. A Greek soul “. And they unlock the work, bathed in the bright Greek light, as well as the novel life of the British painter, who left England in 1946, at the age of 24, looking for the Greek mythological, imaginary world in post-war Greece and its people, especially in Crete until the mid-1990s. Craxton’s epic journey from darkness to light ended with his death in 2009, at the age of 87. His ashes were scattered in the port of Chania, his second home. The exhibition will be transferred to the Municipal Gallery of Chania in October and then will be presented in London.

“Craxton’s stay in Crete is a cultural reserve for us and we want to make the most of it, especially his house in Souri, which has been declared a monument,” said the governor of Crete, Stavros Arnaoutakis, while the mayor of Chania, Panagi. also the collaborations that have been developed by the Municipality of Chania with the Benaki Museum.

The exhibition marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of John Craxton is the largest ever organized for the British painter in a museum. It is part of the cycle of exhibitions that capture “the phenomenon of post-war philhellenism through British eyes and the British heart. Craxton was one of those hearts, with a look at the daily life of Greece, especially for Crete, fresh, erotic, full of intensity, which justified him “according to George Magginis, scientific director of the Benakis Museum, recalling his previous reports museum (“Gikas, Craxton, Leigh Fermor: the charm of life in Greece”).

The exhibition of the Benaki Museum houses 90 works by John Craxton divided into four sections, many of which are unknown until now and come from the Craxton Estate. They cover all periods of the artist’s career: engravings and drawings, paintings, an impressive tapestry, as well as photographs and personal items.

It is edited by the biographer and executor of his will, Ian Collins, and coincides with the publication of Craxton’s acclaimed biography in Greek translation entitled “John Craxton, The Beloved of Life. A Greek soul “(published by Patakis).

“This exhibition is about joy and light in all this dire situation of the pandemic, of war. “John Craxton found himself in Greece, his identity,” greeted Ian Collins.

“Gifted with extraordinary talent and fortune, Craxton was a heroic hedonist – he lived for pleasure and captured it in his paintings.”

This cosmopolitan prefecture became famous as an artist from a very young age, during the war years in London, together with his best friend, Lucien Freud. But he always longed for Greece. A descendant of a large, music-loving and bohemian London family with a wide social circle, Craxton was an anarchist who only wanted to paint – and learned through his eyes. He discovered the work of El Greco and Picasso while he was still a teenager and loved ancient Greek art in the museums he often visited. But what he dreamed of was a life full of light. He took the first step on his journey south, sketching in Paris in 1939, but was forced to return to England due to the impending World War II. He was trapped there for six endless years and became known as an eccentric child – a marvel of art.

Thanks to his personal charm, he managed to board a military aircraft together with the wife of the British ambassador to Greece and landed in Athens in the spring of 1946. During the following decades, he explored the Aegean and surrendered to his captivity. From the moment he arrived in the country until his death, almost all of his work praised the life, light and landscapes of Greece.

Before the advent of mass tourism, John Craxton enjoyed the survival of the mythical element in the daily life of the Greek countryside, which seemed unchanged from the years of Homer. He had many famous friends and designed famous covers for Patrick Le Fermor’s books as well as a ballet for Margot Fontaine. But he preferred to paint ordinary people – shepherds with their families, sailors and soldiers – with whom he enjoyed spending his time.

After many wanderings – and long periods of hospitality in the mansion of his closest artist friend, Nikos Hatzikyriakos-Gikas, in Hydra – he moved to an old house in the port of Chania. He was famous for his special humor, whether he spoke English or Greek. He once said: “When I did not have a motorcycle, I felt like a Centaur transforming into a rocking horse.” Despite his erudition, the result of personal study rather than systematic studies, he was essentially a naive stranger. His great courage or carelessness put him in trouble. When he was exiled from Greece during the junta period, it was said that he had overdone it with his jokes – how many times could he mock power and make it clear?

During the almost ten troubled years of his exile he traveled to Edinburgh – “Athens of the North” – to design and oversee the creation of a tapestry that paid homage to traditional Cretan textiles and mythology, climate, landscapes and sensuality. of Greece. The Landscape tapestry with elements of nature will travel for the first time from Scotland to Greece and will be the main exhibit of the exhibition.

His return to Greece, during the Metapolitism, was for him the most valuable gift in the course of his successful life. After relocating to his home in Chania, his ever-evolving art was reborn. He gradually assimilated all the eras of Greek creativity – the sculpture of antiquity, the Byzantine mosaics, the iconography of Crete – and mixed together the ancient and the modern, in the same majestic image. He playfully expressed his deep love for humans, goats and cats.

John Craxton despised the artist’s reputation. He did not even care to complete his paintings, let alone sell them. If his work reveals one thing about him, it is that he preferred life to art: life in Greece, above all.

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