Iakovos Rizos or Iacovos Rizos ( gr, Ιάκωβος Ρίζος ), also known as Jacques Rizo, (1849 – 1926) was a Greek painter who worked primarily in Paris.

Biography

Rizos was born in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

; he was the grandson of

Iakovos Rizos Neroulos Iakovos is a transliteration of the Greek name Ἰάκωβος, which in an English form is Jacob or James. People with the name include: * Archbishop Iakovos of America (1911–2005), Primate of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North and South ...

and his brother was a civil engineer.Clovis Lamarre and Marquis de Queux de St.-Hilaire, ''La Grèce et l'Exposition de 1878'', Pays étrangers et l'Exposition de 1878, Paris: Delagrave, 1878,
pp. 153–54
. He went to Paris as a young man, studied with

Alexandre Cabanel Alexandre Cabanel (; 28 September 1823 – 23 January 1889) was a French painter. He painted historical, classical and religious subjects in the academic style. He was also well known as a portrait painter. According to ''Diccionario Enciclopedi ...

at the

École des Beaux Arts École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région ...

, and spent his career there. He died there in 1926.Andreas Spyridōnos Iōannou, tr. D. Dellagrammatika, ''Greek painting, 19th century'', Athens: Melissa, 1974, , p. 238. Rizos was a friend of

Renoir Pierre-Auguste Renoir (; 25 February 1841 – 3 December 1919) was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style. As a celebrator of beauty and especially feminine sensuality, it has been said that "Re ...

and associated with the

Impressionists Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by relatively small, thin, yet visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating ...

, and much admired

Degas Edgar Degas (, ; born Hilaire-Germain-Edgar De Gas, ; 19 July 183427 September 1917) was a French Impressionist artist famous for his pastel drawings and oil paintings. Degas also produced bronze sculptures, prints and drawings. Degas is espec ...

' work after he first moved to Paris, but his own style was academic.Ρίζος Ιάκωβος (1849 Αθήνα - 1926 Παρίσι)
,

National Gallery of Greece The National Gallery ( el, Εθνική Πινακοθήκη, ''Ethniki Pinakothiki'') is an art museum located on Vasilissis Sofias avenue in the Pangrati district, Athens, Greece. It is devoted to Greek and European art from the 14th century ...

. Many of his paintings portray elegantly dressed women; he less often painted landscapes, in an Impressionist-influenced style. He exhibited a number of times at the

Paris salon The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...

s, beginning with a portrait of his sister, Mrs. Paparrigopoulos, which he re-worked for the

1878 Paris exposition The third Paris World's Fair, called an Exposition Universelle in French, was held from 1 May to 10 November 1878. It celebrated the recovery of France after the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War. Construction The buildings and the fairgroun ...

. In 1875 his portrait of "Miss R." in a black silk dress with violet sleeves was noted by one critic as one of the finest portraits in the show. In 1877 his ''Indolence'', a nude, was praised by one critic except for the execution of the head, and by another praised for the colouration but faulted for the drawing, particularly of the hands and feet. Rizos' ''Athenian Evening'' or ''On the Terrace'' of 1897 won a silver medal at the

1900 Paris exposition The Exposition Universelle of 1900, better known in English as the 1900 Paris Exposition, was a world's fair held in Paris, France, from 14 April to 12 November 1900, to celebrate the achievements of the past century and to accelerate developmen ...

and was praised at the 1899 art exhibition in Athens. It depicts an officer talking to two women on a terrace at sunset, with the

Acropolis An acropolis was the settlement of an upper part of an ancient Greek city, especially a citadel, and frequently a hill with precipitous sides, mainly chosen for purposes of defense. The term is typically used to refer to the Acropolis of Athens, ...

in the background, in contrast to the more common depictions of Greece in 19th-century painting that focus on rural life. It is a noted example of the juxtaposition of sophisticated urban life with the country's past grandeur, which was a theme of Greek artists in the late 19th and 20th centuries. It and a number of his other paintings are in the Coutlides Collection at the

; there are also several in private collections in both Athens and Paris. At the 1897 salon, Albert-Gustave Belleroche exhibited a portrait of Rizo.''L'Illustration'' 109 (1897
307
.

Gallery

File:RIZOS2.jpg, ''Lady in the Garden with her Dog'' (1885–1890) File:RIZOS1.jpg, ''The Artist's Sister Reading'' (1885–1890) File:Γυναικείο γυμνό.jpg, ''Female Nude'', c. (1849–1926)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Rizos, Iakovos 1849 births 1926 deaths Artists from Athens 19th-century Greek painters 20th-century Greek painters Greek emigrants to France Artists from Paris