Georg Demetriades

Georg Demetriades (born February 12, 1899 in Vienna ; † October 30, 1979 ) was a Greek-German landscape and portrait painter.

biography

Georg Demetriades lived in Patras in Greece until he was six years old . From 1907 to 1972 he lived in Hamburg , where he attended secondary school in Uhlenhorst up to secondary school .

As a nine-year-old he was already drawing from his own free perspective, in terms of space and perspective, and at the age of eleven he began drawing his first portrait studies after life. From 1915 he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts with Arthur Illies and Behnke. In 1918 he studied at the Munich Academy with Gröber, then from 1920 to 1922 again in Hamburg with Illies.

From 1920 he had exhibitions in large galleries such as Bock and Commeter in Hamburg. From 1934 he dealt with open-air painting after Hans von Bartels . In 1938 Demetriades worked in South Tyrol in Val Gardena, in the Sella Joch and in the Pordoi Joch. The religious element that filled him from the beginning was expressed in the great calm and clarity of his landscapes. In 1939 he was in East Prussia as a guest at Maldeuten Castle , where a representative portrait of Field Marshal Count von Moltke and several landscapes were created on behalf of the landlord. In 1944 he lost his large studio and all of his works in Hamburg due to air raids.

Demetriades created the portrait of the Hessian farmer in Schlüchtern / Hessen in 1951 ; it is now owned by the city of Gießen . In 1953 an exhibition followed in Bietigheim / Enz. He made several trips to Norway and Portugal with portraits. In 1965/66/67, three large private exhibitions were held in Hamburg. 1968–71 followed by portraits from Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt , Federal Minister Wehner and Prime Minister Franz-Josef Röder .

In the summer of 1972 he gave up his decades-long residence and studio in Hamburg and settled in Giessen. The diversity of the Hessian landscape and people had stimulated him to work before. Georg Demetriades died in Gießen in 1979. A commemorative exhibition took place in 1982 in the art exhibition rooms in the congress hall in Gießen.

"Georg Demetriades, who is represented with 18 oil paintings from a period of over 30 years, shows himself - according to Dr. Pettersen - superior in painterly experience and training. His landscape paintings are experienced nature, in them the silence in the picture-appropriate expression has got a voice. The masterful portraits also make it clear that there is currently no better portrait painter in the Federal Republic than today's 80-year-old Georg Demetriades. "

- Source: MAZ March 15, 1979

Web links

• Homepage of the family of Georg Demetriades