Ghika, Craxton, Leigh Fermor. Charmed lives in Greece…


If you live in Cyprus, or find yourself visiting the island until May 22nd, 2017, do make sure you visit the Ghika, Craxton, Leigh Fermor Exhibition at the Leventis Gallery in Nicosia.

Leventis Gallery is a beautiful place to visit, with priceless exhibits, put together in the most professional way, with international standards.

This exhibition was curated  by Evita Arapoglou, Ian Collins, Michael Llewellyn-Smith and Ioanna Moraiti.

The exhibition presents the friendship of three significant figures, the artists Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika (1906-1994) and John Craxton (1922-2009) and the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011), from the early years of their acquaintance in the mid-1940s to the end of their lives. Through the display of works of art, extracts from texts, photographs, letters, manuscripts and publications, we follow their relationship and their artistic and literary careers, with their love of Greece always a common denominator. As well as giving a chronological account, the exhibition plays on the theme of the places which inspired them – Hydra, Kardamyli, Crete and Corfu – and where they found hospitable settings to live and create.

‘All of Greece is absorbing and rewarding,’ Leigh Fermor wrote in his book Mani in 1958; Craxton was aptly described as ‘a Greek not by birth but by a kind of nostalgic conviction’; while of the Greek artist who shared his enchantment with the life of his country with his two British friends, it has been said that: ‘Ghika has placed himself in the centre of all time, in that self-perpetuating Greece which has no borders, no limits, no age.’ (From the Exhibition booklet)

What a wonderful journey!

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