Passionate Couple

Basil Goulandris was a Greek shipowner who, alongside his wife Élise, assembled an extensive art collection. Together, they supported numerous artists, some of whom portrayed them, like Chagall who painted Élise. The couple established the very first modern art museum in Greece on the island of Andros, Basil Goulandris’s birthplace. Their Athens foundation, inaugurated in 2019 after their passing, showcases a portion of their rich collection, featuring prominent figures from the late 19th and 20th centuries such as Monet, Van Gogh, Degas, Picasso, Matisse, Richier, Ed Ruscha, Poliakoff, and more.

Form of Art Regaining Prominence

The art of multiples allows for increased production, facilitating broader access to artists’ works. However, this practice, at times overlooked, is seldom presented to visitors. The exhibition thus displays over ninety lithographs, engravings, and ceramics from the Goulandris collection across eight sections, each dedicated to an artist: Balthus, Braque, Léger, Maillol, Matisse, Miró, Picasso, and Toulouse-Lautrec. The event also underscores that all these artists collaborated, for this practice, with galleries and engraving studios (Ambroise Vollard, Galerie Maeght, Tériade, Fernand Mourlot, and Suzanne Ramié).

Masters of Drawing – Maillol

Four years after Maillol’s death in 1948, the French publishing house Flammarion released a portfolio featuring his drawings. The preface was written by Jules Romains, a French poet, philosopher, playwright, and writer. This publication introduced a lesser-known aspect of the artist’s work. While primarily famous for his sculptures, Maillol explored various disciplines, including paintings, tapestries, and objets d’art. Much of his research involved the study of the human body, resulting in a substantial body of drawings, ranging from quick sketches to fully finished compositions. For Maillol, drawing was a daily practice, a means to articulate his thoughts and act as a mediator between observed reality and his envisioned sculptures.

In addition to drawings, Maillol created engravings and lithographs, particularly for illustrating numerous books. In collaboration with Count Harry Kessler, several publications featured his engravings and lithographs, characterized by simple lines and pure forms.

Towards the end of the 19th century, he initiated his first lithographic attempt depicting “ Femme au bord d’un torrent”, a theme he revisited in painting later on. Throughout his career, Maillol never limited himself to a single technique, consistently focusing on the subject of the female body. Whether sitting, standing, walking, crouching, often nude or draped in a simple cloth, the lithographs showcased in the exhibition depict robust, solid, and sculptural women exuding a profound sensuality—truly groundbreaking for the time.