Still life with peaches
He studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1900-1907) under professors Georgios Roilos, Nikiforos Lytras, Dimitris Geraniotis, Georgios Iakovidis and Konstantinos Volanakis, and graduated with the Thomaidio Award. After graduation, he left for Munich on a private scholarship from Dr Haramis and initially attended classes at Walter Thor’s art school. The following year, he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts and worked in the studios of Otto Seitz and Georg Schildknecht. Following a short trip to Berlin to visit Max Liebermann, he settled in Munich, where he attended classes led by Heinrich Zugel. In 1914, he joined the Artists Association in Munich and in 1927 became a member of the New Secession group of expressionist artists. He went to Paris in 1928 and remained there until 1932. Relying on a promise made to him by the Greek government that he would be appointed professor at the Athens School of Fine Arts, he returned to Greece. However, the appointment never materialised and Bouzianis remained in Athens, where he worked as an artist to produce a significant body of work. In 1949, he was one of the founding members of the “Stathmi” group and received the Guggenheim International Award in painting in 1956.
Bouzianis was the pre-eminent representative of expressionism in Greece and one of the most important in Germany. With his academic background in painting, his early works followed the teachings of his school, though while in Germany he turned to the dictates of the Secession, particularly Franz von Stuck’s, and over time developed his own personal language. After 1914, he focused on the human form, while after 1917, one of his chief subjects was the deterioration of human existence.
