His artistic name was "Nonda" as most of his life spent in France. The great art critic J.P. Crespelle next to "Nonda" completed the phrase "Le Grec Volcanique" that the "volcanic Greek" would say. The artist, who was fascinated by Paris, gave his works the place he always deserves in this city. The most central.
The first years
Epaminondas Papadopoulos was born on October 11, 1922. His father wanted him a successor in the art of fashion, but he had other plans. In 1947 he left Greece behind to study at Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris with a fellowship in French
Institute. In the morning he was studying and in the evenings was washing buses to cover his daily expenses while also working as a tailor, an art that, despite his refusal, managed to learn.
His characteristic passion for painting was when at some point at the beginning of his career he had reached the point of shaving his head to avoid temptations and focusing on his work. His mark managed to leave it in the 1950s and 1960s, and although he firmly painted Paris, the footprint in his works was deeply Greek. In the Pigal area and in Montmartre of Paris, he observed and at the same time imprinted Parisians and the sad street musicians, victims of post -war poverty.
At the same time he painted Les Halles on the market, literally on the benches of fish, meats and fruits while his works were always able to present them with the foam of artists such as Brac and Sagal at the Cherpantier Gallery. In 1956, with the encouragement of engraver Dimitris Galani and the poet Francis Carco, Papadopoulos gained recognition in the famous Ecole de Paris among the top 20th century. After a related permit, he even presented to the public, in an outdoor exhibition under the city's oldest bridge, Pont Neuf- the famous Horse of Troy in which the exhibition lived as long as the exhibition lasts. Papadopoulos, through these exhibitions he organized, managed to reintegrate art in the public space. That is, what is now considered sloping, then was a great pioneering and started by Nonda.
His contact with conservative Athens
In 1952 Greece will "call" Papadopoulos back in order to fulfill his military obligations. He immediately took advantage of the opportunity of his brief return, presenting paintings at the Parnassos Philological Association. The paintings depicted bold, erotic naked and were dedicated to the Parisian conventions of the Parisian era, the beautiful woman of the French capital.
The conservative then Athens could not accept this form of art, characterizing their paintings scandalous. In their honor, both Stratis Mirivilis and Takis Doxas defended the right to free expression in publications of the time. The artist, however, had a better answer and so he had taken fig leaves from the trees and pinned them at the points in question of his works.
His work
Papadopoulos participated in all the historical exhibitions of Grand Palais, along with Picasso, Brack, Miro, Lece, Sagal and many others. In the early 1950s it was originally used using blood from cows and charcoal. From this time, called "Spleen period", the expressionist series of the 1970s comes. His inspiration always came from the female figure (portraits, bare, erotic clusters) and is sometimes presented with symbols, such as horses or bulls that give her strength.
Its endless end
In 1981, married an American and with two children, she decides to return to Athens. In Agia Paraskevi, in his father's house, he worked on a series of large and abstract sculptures of human forms that were made of cement. Five years later the sculptures were presented at the Park of Tank Square in Kolonaki. Arriving at the end of the exhibition, Papadopoulos will fall into a comatose state due to a serious heart attack, resulting in immediate transfer to America for significant surgery. His sculptures were transferred to a municipality warehouse with most being lost. In fact, he managed to locate only two of them in a rubbish dust. This indifference of the state deeply hurt the artist by exacerbating the mental impact of the health problems he was facing. He died on October 30, 2005 from Alzheimer's, leaving behind a rich project.
Source: kefalonitis.com
