Basil Goulandris

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Basil Goulandris (also Vassilis , Βασίλειος Γουλανδρής; born September 6, 1913 in Andros (Greece) ; † April 27, 1994 in Athens ) was a Greek shipowner and art collector .

Life

The Queen Anna Maria ran for the Greek Line from 1965 to 1975

Goulandri's father operated the ferry services in the Aegean Sea with his ships . The operations of the shipping company founded by his five sons in 1939 came to a standstill after the Italian and German occupation of Greece in 1941, and the shipping company's ships on the Atlantic were used to supply Great Britain . Due to German submarines , the shipping company lost the ships Violando N. Goulandris , Frangoula B. Goulandris and George J. Goulandris . The shipping company took off after the end of the Second World War, when Goulandris benefited from the global tonnage shortage during the Korean War . Basil, who had studied in Greece and Switzerland, took over the management of the family business, which was based in New York City , in 1950 after the death of his brother John . Goulandris created one of the Greek-controlled shipping empires. He was able to lead his companies grouped around the Greek Line with varying degrees of success through the boom in shipping. At peak times, the shipping group owned 70 ships that were used in transatlantic traffic from Greece or for emigration to Australia . With the gradual displacement of passenger shipping by airlines, the Greek Line shifted increasingly to cruises . The company ran into economic difficulties in the 1970s and went into liquidation in 1975. In the meantime, Goulandris had found another mainstay in the banking and financial sector. Goulandris maintained good relations with the respective governments in Greece, including with the Greek military dictatorship that ruled from 1968 to 1974 . In the First Gulf War in 1992, Goulandris was able to benefit from a tonnage transfer to Iran . Goulandris served on the board of the American Bureau of Shipping .

Basil Goulandris was married to Elisa Karadontis (1917-2000), the couple had no children. After the ship disaster on the cruise ship Lakonia in 1963, Goulandris moved to Switzerland in 1965. In old age he fell ill with Parkinson's disease , which had seriously affected his actions since the late 1980s. In France he was made a Knight of the French Legion of Honor in 1981 , an officer in 1986 and also a Commander des Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1983. In Greece he received the Order of George I and other awards in 1956 .

Art collection

Vincent van Gogh: Les Alyscamps in the Basil P. and Elise Goulandris collection

Goulandris bought a still life with apples by the painter Paul Gauguin in 1957 for a then record price of $ 297,000 .

The "Vasilis and Eliza Goulandris Foundation" and the "Museum of Modern Art" on Andros were founded in 1979. Goulandris' Cycladic Collection, which has been on public display since 1978, has been part of the Museum of Cycladic Art in Athens since 1986 , where a museum building by the architect Ieoh Ming Pei planned by the Goulandris Foundation failed in 1996 due to the ancient building site. His pictures, located in Switzerland, hung in his chalet in Gstaad in winter , in a villa in Lausanne in summer or they were stored. The collection includes paintings and sculptures by Francis Bacon , Balthus , Pierre Bonnard , Georges Braque , Paul Cézanne , Edgar Degas , Max Ernst , Alberto Giacometti , Vincent van Gogh , Wassily Kandinsky , Paul Klee , Fernand Léger , Joan Miró , Richard Lin , Claude Monet , Jackson Pollock , Auguste Rodin and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec .

The Goulandris Museum of Contemporary Art opened in Athens in 2019.

Despite the unclear ownership structure among the heirs of Goulandris, the collection has already been sold.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Moschos: Obituary: Basil Goulandris , in: The Independent , May 6, 1994
  2. ↑ Violando N. Goulandris , see U48 , also at uboat.net ; Frangoula B. Goulandris , see U26 , also at uboat.net ; George J. Goulandris , see U66 , also at uboat.net ;
  3. ↑ Basil Goulandris , short biography at switzerland is yours
  4. ↑ Awards in the short biography at the Vasilis and Eliza Goulandris Foundation
personal data
SURNAME Goulandris, Basil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek shipowner and art collector
DATE OF BIRTH September 6, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Andros , Greece
DATE OF DEATH April 27, 1994
Place of death Athens