Composition pour les JO, 1992

Constantin Byzantios  

Constantin Byzantios is a Franco-Greek painter born in November, 1924 in Athens and died in 2007.
After studying at the School of Fine Arts of Athens, He moved to Paris where he live since 1946. In 1950, he became friends with the Sculptor Alberto Giacometti and the art critics Christian Zervos and Georges Duthuit. Since 1954, his art leaned toward non-figuration. He exhibited his work at the Gallery Jeanne Bucher in 1962 with an Introduction of Eugene Ionesco. In 1965, he came back to a figurative style which he exhibited in Christian Zervos Gallery "Cahiers D'arts".

Byzantos at this time of his life mainly frequented writers and poets, some of whom signed the prefaces of a major retrospective at the Galliera Museum in 1972. This was a turning point in his career because Byzantios decided to return definitively to a figurative style and dedicated exclusively to drawing for this purpose for 6 years. His drawings were exhibited in numerous galleries both in France and abroad.
After the drawing, he tried oïl painting. The first significant exhibition after his return to figuration in oil, mainly still life, which took place in Karl Flinker's gallery in 1982, shortly before the closing of the Gallery.
Between 1982 and 1990, Byzantios decided to undertake the representation of characters which he exhibited in 1990 at the Gallery Lavignes-Bastille.

In addition to the numerous group exhibitions in which he participated, we can list several others in France: at the Foundation Maeght "Ten Years of Living Art" - at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris "Tendencies of Art in France 1968-1978" And "Mythologies Quotidiennes" - at the Georges Pompidou Museum "Hommage à Manet" and at the Pinacotheque d'Athènes "Four painters" etc.