View from the balcony
Dimitris Saridakis was born in 1912 in Kastamonitsa, Heraklion, Crete. He enrolled in the Athens School of Fine Arts (1937) and studied under P. Mathiopoulos, Sp. Vikatos and Ep. Thomopoulos. His studies were interrupted due to WWII and the military draft, and thus, he graduated in 1945. In 1950 he took part in the 1st Pancretan group exhibition which was held in Rethymnon and in 1952 he held his first solo exhibition at the Heraklion Club.
A year later he settled permanently in Heraklion, Crete, where he worked mainly as an icon painter and undertook several important projects, which included 4 icons for the chapel of St. Olga (Church of St. Konstantinos in Omonia, Athens), and in Crete the portable murals in the Church of St. Titus (Heraklion), the murals in the Church of St. Dimitrios (port of Heraklion), the Delivery of the Holy Skull of St. Titus for the chapel of the Holy Archdiocese of Crete, etc.
He collaborated for a while with the icon painter Stelios Kartakis, and, it is known that he often consulted Photis Kontoglou for his compositions. Important retrospective exhibitions of his work were organized by the Association of Philologists of the prefecture of Heraklion at the Basilica of St. Mark (Heraklion) under the auspices of the Municipality and the Holy Archdiocese of Crete and the contribution of his son, painter Manolis Saridakis. In 2005, a special event in his memory was held in Kastamonitsa, his birthplace, and the Municipality of Heraklion named a street after him.