Background
The townsmen of Galaxidi, where Vassiliou was born, collected money to send him to Athens in 1921, to study at the Athens School of Fine s under teachers Alexandros Kaloudis and Nikolaos Lytras.
The townsmen of Galaxidi, where Vassiliou was born, collected money to send him to Athens in 1921, to study at the Athens School of Fine s under teachers Alexandros Kaloudis and Nikolaos Lytras.
The recipient of a Guggenheim Prize for Greece (in 1960), Spyros Vassiliou"s works have been exhibited in galleries throughout Europe, in the United States, and Canada. He represented Greece at the Venice Biennale in 1934 and 1964, exhibited in Alexandria in 1957, and at the São Paulo Biennial in 1959. In 1955 he designed and painted the interior of Saint Konstantinos Orthodox church of Detroit.
In 1960 his autobiographical work, Lights & Shadows, was exhibited in the Guggenheim Museum.
In 1975 and 1983 his work was presented in a retrospective exhibition in the National Gallery and Alexandros Soutzos Museum. Spyros Vassiliou became recognized as a painter of the transformation of the modern urban environment, depicting with an unwavering eye the sprawl of urban development that surrounded his home in Athens, under the walls of the Parthenon.
His artistic identity combined monochrome backgrounds and the unorthodox positioning of objects. He paid homage to the Byzantine icon by floating symbols of everyday Greek life on washes of gold or sea-blue color, very much like the religious symbols that float on gold in religious art
With oils and watercolours he painted natural and urban space, portraits, still-life, and scenes of daily living, combining selective elements of cubism and impressionism.
Foreign many years Vassiliou taught theatre. As early as 1927 he designed sets and costumes for the stage. He also worked in film.
During the years of the German occupation of Greece (1941-1945), when painting supplies were scarce, Vassiliou turned to engraving and woodcuts.
His activity during those years also included the illustration and underground publication of three manuscript volumes as well as woodcut prints for magazines. The home and studio of Spyros Vassiliou opened to the public as a Museum in June 2004 with the help of the Hellenic Ministry of Culture.
The museum is located blocks away from the ancient Odeon of Herodes Atticus, and the Acropolis of Athens.
During this time he was also a founding member of the art groups ”Techni" and "Stathmi". A member of an important community of Greek artists in the mid-20th century, Vassiliou was known as one of the first Greek popular-art painters.