Joannis Avramidis ( el, Iωάννης Aβραμίδης; born 23 September 1922 – 16 January 2016) was a contemporary

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

-Austrian sculptor. He was born in

Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ) is the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), second largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's ...

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

to a family of

Pontic Greeks The Pontic Greeks ( pnt, Ρωμαίοι, Ρωμίοι, tr, Pontus Rumları or , el, Πόντιοι, or , , ka, პონტოელი ბერძნები, ), also Pontian Greeks or simply Pontians, are an ethnically Greek group in ...

.
He began studying painting at the state art school, but due to Stalin's

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population trans ...

, this came to an end; his father died in 1937 in prison. After many eventful years and having fled to

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

, he was conscripted in 1943 by the

National Socialists Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...

and deported as a foreign worker back to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. At the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

he studied painting under Robin Christian Andersen (1945-1949) at the

Academy of Fine Arts Vienna The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (german: link=no, Akademie der bildenden Künste Wien) is a public art school in Vienna, Austria. History The Academy of Fine Arts Vienna was founded in 1692 as a private academy modelled on the Accademia di Sa ...

, and from 1953 to 1956 attends Fritz wotrubas' sculpture classes. Since then, the search for the 'absolute figure' stands at the centre of his work. Consequently, two eras serve as sources of inspiration for the artist, eras in which the figure and its proportions were held as the measure of all things. These are the classical antiquity and the

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the tra ...

. Avramidis allows the borders between

abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or " concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An a ...

and figurative depiction to merge in his sculptures. Softly rounded curves suggest the human body without defining it, whilst various profile views are fanned out, as though blurred. In 1962 Avramidis represented

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

in the 31st Biennale in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

, and participated in

documenta II II. documenta was the second edition of documenta, a quinquennial contemporary art exhibition. It was held between 11 July and 1 October 1959 in Kassel, West Germany. The artistic director was Arnold Bode in collaboration with art historian We ...

(1964) and

documenta 6 documenta 6 was the sixth edition of documenta, a quinquennial contemporary art exhibition An art exhibition is traditionally the space in which art objects (in the most general sense) meet an audience. The exhibit is universally understood ...

(1977). From 1965 to his retirement in 1992 he held the position of Professor of sculpture at the

.
After the death of his wife ( Annemarie Avramidis), two years earlier, he completely withdrew from the public, and during the night of January 16, 2016, Joannis Avramidis died at the age of 93 with his family.

Decorations and awards

*1956: State Prize of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna *1958: Austrian promotion prize for sculpture *1961: Award from the City of Vienna *1961: Hugo von Montfort-prize (Bregenz) *1964: City of Vienna Prize for Visual Arts *1968: Will Grohmann-Prize (Berlin) *1973: Grand Austrian State Prize for Visual Arts *1985:

Austrian Decoration for Science and Art The Austrian Decoration for Science and Art (german: Österreichisches Ehrenzeichen für Wissenschaft und Kunst) is a state decoration of the Republic of Austria and forms part of the Austrian national honours system. History The "Austrian ...

References

External links

*
www.lempertz.com
Retrieved February 2019
www.galerie-albertina.at
(in German) Retrieved February 2019
www.galerie-albertina.at
Retrieved February 2019 1922 births 2016 deaths Austrian sculptors Austrian male sculptors Greek sculptors Austrian people of Greek descent Soviet emigrants to Austria Austrian people of Georgian descent Pontic Greeks Georgian people of Greek descent People from Batumi Academic staff of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Recipients of the Grand Austrian State Prize Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art 20th-century Greek sculptors {{Georgia-artist-stub