GEORGIOS DERPAPAS Greek, 1937-2014 Reclining Nude with Antelope, 1963 Mixed media on paper laid down to a board Surrealist composition rendered in a dark, richly textured mixed-media technique (likely combining oil and incised or embossed metal / wax ground) depicting a reclining nude figure beneath an antelope and a dark, moon-like orb, set against a fractured, jewel-toned landscape. Signed and dated "Derpapas 63" lower left. Framed. (approx.) 8 x 11.5 inches; frame: 12 x 16 inches $250-350
Georgios Derpapas (1937–2014) was a Greek painter and graphic artist born in Katerini, Central Macedonia, and raised in Thessaloniki. He is considered a representative of Greek surrealism. At nineteen he moved to Hamburg to study political and economic sciences, returning to Greece around 1960 to devote himself entirely to painting. His early work shows the clear influence of Surrealism and the imaginative spirit of the Vienna School, combining realist and abstract distortion of his subjects with exceptional draftsmanship, before shifting after 1964 toward strongly colored oils on canvas or panel, later informed by Dalí, Magritte, and Max Ernst. Derpapas held numerous solo exhibitions in Greece and abroad, including at "Tillybs" in Hamburg and "Die Insel" in Mannheim in 1964, as well as the Panhellenic Exhibitions of 1967, 1969, and 1971. He died on Mykonos in 2014.