Bust of an Elderly Man
Grigorios Zevgolis, after studying painting with Georgios Roïlos and Nikiphoros Lytras, and sculpture with Georgios Vroutos at the Athens School of Fine Arts, continued his studies of sculpture at the Julien Academy in Paris, while at the same time attending lessons at the École des Beaux Arts. After his return to Greece in 1911, he played a leading part in the renewal of artistic expression by his active membership of the 'Art Group', together with his friends the painter Nikolaos Lytras, with whom he shared a studio. The sculpture of Zevgolis, with its fluctuating impressionistic forms, relates to the Rodin and post-Rodin trend in Greece. The fluidity in the modelling of the surfaces makes use of all the possibilities of light for the rendering of every detail, resulting in a concentration on the highlighting of the essential features of his subjects which was his aim. He produced funerary monuments, war memorials, busts, nudes, reliefs, and free compositions.
In Bust of an Elderly Man, an aged man in simple provincial costume is depicted in bust form; the smallest detail of his features is clearly delineated, from the slackness of the skin of the throat to the separate carving of each hair of the head and the moustache. The weary and aged eyes, the hollowed cheeks, and the weight of the head on the bent shoulders demonstrate the artist's skill in the use of his plastic material with a precision which leads to the desired result.
