Background
Yiannis Moralis was born on April 23, 1916 in Arta, Greece. He moved to Athens with his parents in 1927.
Ιωάννης Μόραλης
Yiannis Moralis was born on April 23, 1916 in Arta, Greece. He moved to Athens with his parents in 1927.
From the age of 15 Yiannis Moralis studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts under Umbertos Argyros and Konstantinos Parthenis. Dimitris Yeraniotis and Yannis Kefallinos were also his professors, while his classmates, including Yannis Tsarouchis, Christos Kapralos and Nikos Nikolaou, later became his friends.
In 1936 he received a grant from this school to study for a year in Rome. After this, between 1937 and 1939, he went to Paris to study fresco and mural work at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts and to study mosaic at the École des Arts et Métiers.
Yiannis Moralis returned to Greece when the Second World War broke out in 1939. The first exhibition of one of his works was in 1940; numerous other exhibitions followed both nationally and internationally, including: Panhellenic exhibitions (1940, 1948, 1952), Venice Biennale (1958, with Yannis Tsarouchis), Europalia (Brussels, 1982).
Moralis taught at the Athens School of Fine Arts from 1947 until his retirement in 1983. He also worked as a stage designer and costume designer with Rallou Manou's Greek Dance Theatre from 1951 to 1966, the National Theatre, and the Art Theatre. Moralis has also decorated buildings, including the Athens Hilton, the Xenia Hotel in Florina, the Mont Parnes Hotel on Parnitha, and the Athens University underground railway station, sometimes in association with the potter Eleni Vernardaki (the Dionysos pavilion at Filopappou, the new City Hall in Athens), and has illustrated books by Elytis, Seferis, and Frantziskakis.
Some of Moralis' most famous works included "Pregnant Woman" (1948), "Seated Nude" (1952) and "Erotiko" (1990). The human, particularly female, form is the main subject of Moralis's work. The academic approach of his early career gave way in the '50s to more abstract formulations. In a quest for harmony and balance, in accordance with the fundamental spirit of classical antiquity, Moralis selected geometry as the ideal means of rendering space and the figures which inhabit it. Rhythm, order, a shunning of detail and description, and the simple palette which he gradually imposed in the course of an organic evolution underscore an archaic sense of grandeur and fullness.
Yiannis Moralis died on December 20, 2009 in Athens, Greece.
Erotic
Composition
Funerary Composition V
Funeral Composition VII
Summer
Drawing of a woman
Girl sleeping
Composition
Athens Landscape
Self Portrait with Nikos Nikolaou
Reclining Nude
Still Life
Daydreaming
Erotic
Composition
Erotic
Portrait of a girl
Full Moon
10 colored drawings for the poems of George Seferis
Erotic
Boy Standing
Love - Hope
Girl untying her sandal
Memory
Nude
Erotic
Erotic
Funerary Composition I
Portrait of a woman (detail)
Portrait of Fani
Funerary Composition III
Sitting Figure
Standing nude with reflection
10 colored drawings for the poems of George Seferis
Reclining Nude
Portrait of a girl, detail
Erotic
Two girls sitting
Funerary composition
Erotic
Self portrait with Nikos Nikolaou
Nude
10 colored drawings for the poems of George Seferis
Erotic
Nude
Reclining Nude
Erotic
Funerary composition IV
Portrait of Maria Rusen
Self Portrait
Erotic
Figure
Erotic
Erotic
Erotic
10 colored drawings for the poems of George Seferis
Dialogue
10 colored drawings for the poems of George Seferis
Nude in a room
The Artist with his Wife
Love Scene
Erotic
Figure
10 colored drawings for the poems of George Seferis
Three women sitting
Reclining Nude
Pregnant woman
Still Life
Female Nude
Eroticon
Funeral Composition
Figure
10 colored drawings for the poems of George Seferis
The Table
Funerary Composition II
10 colored drawings for the poems of George Seferis
Nude Standing
By the Outdoor Photographer
Composition I
Portrait of sculptor John Pappas
Two Girl Friends
Still Life with Shoes
In 1949 Moralis formed, with other artists including Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, Yannis Tsarouchis and Nikos Nikolaou, the "Armos" art group and was its charter member. This group had its first exhibition in 1950 in Athens' Zappeion.