Portrait of an elderly Cretan

Painter Dimitrios Kokotsis was born in 1894 in Agios Georgios of Kissamos province, prefecture of Chania. He initially studied under painter Ioannis Stavrakis from Heraklion and at the same time he worked as a librarian at the Philological Association “Chrysostomos” (1912 – 1913) in Chania.

He fought at the Balkan Wars and then, on a scholarship granted by the endowment “Othon A. Stathatos”, he studied first at the University of Athens and then at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1916 – 1922). He returned to Chania, where he worked at the High School of Chania from 1923 to 1925. He took part in the Prague International Exhibition and he was also assigned to decorate with religious paintings part of the Trimartyri Church in Chania. He was granted a second scholarship by the endowment “Othon A. Stathatos” and he travelled to Italy, Budapest, Spain, France, London, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Vienna, while also participating in annual competitions and in exhibitions in Paris, Seville and Madrid. He held solo exhibitions in Athens and Paris.

He also published texts on art in the newspaper Eleftheron Vima (1932 – 1938) and was chosen to represent Greece at the Venice Biennale in 1926, 1934 and 1936. In 1939 he participated in the New York World’s Fair where he settled until his death in 1961.