Joannis Avramidis ( el, Iωάννης Aβραμίδης; born 23 September 1922 – 16 January 2016) was a contemporary Greek-Austrian sculptor. He was born in

Batumi Batumi (; ka, ბათუმი ) is the List of cities and towns in Georgia (country), second largest city of Georgia (country), Georgia and the capital of the Autonomous Republic of Adjara, located on the coast of the Black Sea in Georgia's ...

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

to a family of Pontic Greeks.
He began studying painting at the state art school, but due to Stalin's

ethnic cleansing Ethnic cleansing is the systematic forced removal of ethnic, racial, and religious groups from a given area, with the intent of making a region ethnically homogeneous. Along with direct removal, extermination, deportation or population transfer ...

, this came to an end; his father died in 1937 in prison. After many eventful years and having fled to

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates a ...

, he was conscripted in 1943 by the National Socialists and deported as a foreign worker back to

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

. At the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

he studied painting under

Robin Christian Andersen Robin may refer to: Animals * Australasian robins, red-breasted songbirds of the family Petroicidae * Many members of the subfamily Saxicolinae (Old World chats), including: **European robin (''Erithacus rubecula'') ** Bush-robin **Forest r ...

(1945-1949) at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, and from 1953 to 1956 attends Fritz wotrubas' sculpture classes. Since then, the search for the 'absolute figure' stands at the centre of his work. Consequently, two eras serve as sources of inspiration for the artist, eras in which the figure and its proportions were held as the measure of all things. These are the classical antiquity and the

Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...

. Avramidis allows the borders between

abstraction Abstraction in its main sense is a conceptual process wherein general rules and concepts are derived from the usage and classification of specific examples, literal ("real" or " concrete") signifiers, first principles, or other methods. "An abst ...

and figurative depiction to merge in his sculptures. Softly rounded curves suggest the human body without defining it, whilst various profile views are fanned out, as though blurred. In 1962 Avramidis represented

Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...

in the 31st Biennale in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

, and participated in documenta II (1964) and documenta 6 (1977). From 1965 to his retirement in 1992 he held the position of Professor of sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna.
After the death of his wife (

Annemarie Avramidis Annemarie (or Annamarie, Annmarie) is a Danish, Dutch and German feminine given name. It is merging of the names Anne and Marie. Notable people named Annemarie * Annemarie Biechl (born 1949), German politician * Annemarie Bischofberger (born 19 ...

), two years earlier, he completely withdrew from the public, and during the night of January 16, 2016, Joannis Avramidis died at the age of 93 with his family.

Decorations and awards

*1956: State Prize of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna *1958: Austrian promotion prize for sculpture *1961: Award from the City of Vienna *1961: Hugo von Montfort-prize (Bregenz) *1964: City of Vienna Prize for Visual Arts *1968: Will Grohmann-Prize (Berlin) *1973:

Grand Austrian State Prize for Visual Arts The Grand Austrian State Prize () is a decoration given annually by Austria to an artist for exceptional work. The recipient must be an Austrian citizen with a permanent residence in Austria. It was originally created in 1950 by then education mi ...

*1985: Austrian Decoration for Science and Art

References

External links

*
www.lempertz.com
Retrieved February 2019
www.galerie-albertina.at
(in German) Retrieved February 2019
www.galerie-albertina.at
Retrieved February 2019 1922 births 2016 deaths Austrian sculptors Austrian male sculptors Greek sculptors Austrian people of Greek descent Soviet emigrants to Austria Austrian people of Georgian descent Pontic Greeks Georgian people of Greek descent People from Batumi Academic staff of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna Recipients of the Grand Austrian State Prize Recipients of the Austrian Decoration for Science and Art 20th-century Greek sculptors {{Georgia-artist-stub