Houses in the winter

George Sikeliotis, whose family originated from Asia Minor, was born in Smyrna in 1917. The Burning of Smyrna in 1922 forced his family to immigrate to Greece. He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts under K. Parthenis and Sp. Vikatos and graduated in 1939. His first solo exhibition took place in 1954 at the exhibition hall the newspaper To Vima and in 1958 he held an exhibition of his cut-out figures of Karagiozis shadow theatre ar Zygos art gallery. In 1960 he was nominated for the Guggenheim Prize.

He held several solo exhibitions and took part in numerous group exhibitions, both in Greece and abroad: In addition to his participation in the Pan-Hellenic exhibitions of 1948, 1952, 1965 and 1975, the Alexandria Biennale (1957) and the Art Basel (1976), his works were exhibited in Ottawa, Rome, Toronto, Montreal, Basel, Alexandria, Helsinki and Moscow. He also held a solo exhibition in New York in 1965. Large retrospective exhibitions of his work were organised in 1975 and in 1983 by the National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum. George Sikeliotis died in 1984 in Athens.