Hellenic Heads: George Petrides’ Journey Through Time, Art, and Family
Dr Caterina Bellinetti, art historian (cbellinetti.com) · Commissioned essay, 2024
افتُتح معرض رؤوس هيلينية في سفارة اليونان ببرلين في 9 سبتمبر 2026 ويستمر حتى 8 يناير 2027. تُرتب الزيارات مسبقًا مع المكتب الثقافي للسفارة.
George Petrides’ exhibition Hellenic Heads: A Personal Exploration of Greek History and Culture over 2,500 Years is currently on view in the courtyard of the Church of Saint George of the Greeks in Venice. This is a traveling exhibition where Venice is the fifth out of ten stops over a five year period. After Venice, the busts will continue to travel through Europe, the US, and East Asia. This exhibition is not only a celebration of Greek history but also a journey into the art of sculpture through the artist’s family. Petrides intertwines six periods in Greek history with the personal stories of five family members as well as his own. To create the busts, Petrides used a combination of ancient techniques—working by hand—and cutting edge ones like 3D scanning, sculpting software and 3D printing using recycled materials. The artist, born in Athens and relocated with his family to New York at a young age, never severed his ties with Greece: summer holidays, studies in Classical Greek literature, philosophy, and history, and a number of visits to Mount Athos—one of the most important places for the Orthodox faith. All these experiences are honored by Petrides through these six busts and create a bridge between countries, time, and people. The point of convergence is Venice, a city that has built physical and metaphorical bridges with the foreign.
Venice has been attracting travelers, merchants, refugees, and artists for hundreds of years. The military and commercial power that developed between the 9th and 12th century allowed the Venetian Republic, also known as La Serenissima, to become one of the most important economic and cultural centers in the world. The Venetian domination over trade routes with the East meant the development of commercial and military relations with the Byzantine empire and its Greek communities. Between the 9th and 12th century, many Greek artists and craftsmen moved to Venice where their skills and decorative techniques were in great demand. The Greek diaspora reached its peak after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, when the number of Greeks in Venice reached 5,000 people. The Greek community quickly became the largest in the city other than the Italian, predominantly residing in the district of Castello, which is where the Church of Saint George was built.
Hellenic Heads is presented in Venice by the Embassy of Greece to Rome and the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies in Venice. Having Hellenic Heads in the lagoon, and especially in the courtyard of Saint George of the Greeks, highlights the universal significance of the exhibition and the historical ties between the Greek community and the Italian city. The Church of Saint George of the Greeks was built between 1539 and 1573 thanks to the financial donations of the Orthodox Greeks living in the city and the Greek mercenaries that fought for the Venetian armies. With an immediately recognisable leaning bell tower, Saint George is home to unique art pieces, among which are a statue by Baldassare Longhena (1596/97–1682), one of the most celebrated Venetian architects and sculptors, and a series of paintings by the Cretan Michael Damaskinos Μιχαήλ Δαμασκηνός (1530/35–1592/93). Adjacent to Saint George is the Hellenic Institute of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Studies. Founded in 1951, the Institute also hosts one of the most important collections of Orthodox art and icons in the world. By exhibiting the busts in a location that resonates with the history of Greece and its artists, Petrides enhances the chronological and artistic contextualization of his work.
Petrides follows the footsteps of those Greek artists who found a productive haven in the lagoon—for instance, the famous El Greco (1541–1614)—and reignites the long-standing bond between Venice and Greek communities around the world. The six historical periods chosen by Petrides all defined culture within Greece and beyond. For all the six works, Petrides chose a sculptural precedent to serve as a touchstone as he worked and to study how past master sculptors addressed similar topics.
Chronologically, the first bust is Thalia, inspired by Petrides’ mother, and represents the Classical Greek period (510 BC–323 BC). Thalia was the Muse of comedy and pastoral poetry, usually depicted as a joyous young woman with an ivy crown and a mask in her hand. Her name derives from the Ancient Greek, thállein θάλλειν, which means “to flourish.” In this case, the precedent work is a Roman marble head of Thalia held at the Vatican Museums in Rome. This Roman version is a copy of a Greek sculpture of the Classical period, a time that celebrated harmony and beauty as a sign of virtue. While during the Classical period, facial features and expressions were idealized and generalized, Petrides imbues his Thalia with personality. The facial features are of the artist’s mother as seen in photographs taken when she was a twenty year old woman. The contrast between the youthful expression and the weathered surface creates a piece of art that is rooted in the past while being strikingly contemporary.
Petrides has the ability to connect past histories with the present day; to make the personal become universal. The Refugee and Man of Two Wars shine a light on the effects of war on civilians. The Refugee explores the painful years before and after the Treaty of Lausanne and borrows its features from Petrides’ grandmother. Signed in 1923, the Treaty stipulated the end of the Greco-Turkish War and defined the borders between Greece and Turkey. It also ratified the forced transfer of people between the two countries. Greece received around 1.2 million people—mostly urban Orthodox Greeks—while Turkey took in around 400,000, mainly agrarian Muslims. One of these Greeks was Petrides’ grandmother who was a resident of Smyrne. The people displaced because of the Treaty faced hardships in both countries due to language and cultural barriers. Many of them felt like perpetual refugees: unwanted by their old country and foreign in the new. Petrides transported the vicissitude of those years onto The Refugee. Through the contrast between the surface’s light and dark areas, the hooded figure speaks of loss, displacement, but also the strength needed to create a better future. The sculptural antecedent for this bust is the head of the Virgin Mary in The Pietà of 1498–1499 by Michelangelo (1475–1564). Michelangelo’s aesthetic interpretation of the Pietà is unprecedented in Italian sculpture because it balances early forms of naturalism with the Renaissance ideals of classical beauty. Petrides’ Refugee continues to explore this balance.
The theme of war and its impact on the lives of civilians is also addressed in Man of Two Wars. With this bust, Petrides illustrates the effects of the Greek Civil War in the 1940s and the Nazi occupation of Greece that included the Greek Holocaust when nearly 80,000 Greek Jews were murdered. This is Petrides’ self-portrait that addresses a difficult period of his life when he struggled with illness and escaped death. It therefore conveys the struggles of a man fighting forces that are attempting to crush him. The parallel to Pierre de Wiessant by Auguste Rodin (1840–1917) is strong, as that historical figure was also a man who confronted death and ultimately escaped it.
It is not only loss and trauma; strength and hope are present too. With Archon, Heroines, and Kore, Petrides reminds us that not all is lost. Archon represents the Byzantine Empire (330–1453), a period that saw the establishment of Christianity as the leading religion of the Roman Empire. The strong gaze suggests determination, confidence, and leadership. The bust was inspired by Petrides’ father, Christos, who was a sea captain. The sculptural precedent is the statue of Constantine the Great at the Capitoline Museums in Rome. The different colors used suggest not only the relation between Petrides and his family members, but also their character. “I am using the sculptures to reconnect with my family,” Petrides says, “The expressions of each of them are characteristic of a major part of their life.” Petrides’ exploration is personal and emotionally motivated. It goes beyond the blood ties that unite him with his family. The different eras and worlds that his relatives inhabited as well as their experiences are passed on throughout the generations. The creation of Hellenic Heads is therefore Petrides’s way to gather his family’s history, process it, and share it in the form of these six busts.
Heroines, just like Archon, features contrasting colors, in this case green and brown. Petrides researched the years of Greek War of Independence (1821–1829) and discovered that three heroines—Manto Mavrogenous, Laskarina Bouboulina, and Domna Visvizi of Thrace—had fought for the freedom of Greece. These three women defied the odds and societal expectations by taking command of war ships and leading men into battle. Manto, Laskarina, and Domna are examples of strong and victorious female leadership in male-dominated societies. It was only recently their efforts were finally recognised as crucial for the success of the War of Independence. Petrides merged their strength, resilience, and courage into one bust that, arguably because of its color and determined gaze, echoes the Statue of Liberty.
Lastly, there is Kore. For a bust that represents the present looking towards the future, there could be no more appropriate model than Petrides’ daughter. This is the only sculpture whose gaze is upwards and is undoubtedly smiling. The gold finish represents not only the brightness of the future but also the purity of the love between parents and their children. Just like courage and determination are found in Heroines and The Refugee, they are equally visible in Kore. Unlike the other busts, there is no unevenness in color or texture, no haunting experiences within the folds of the skin, no refuge to seek. Kore is a future to be discovered, a clean, unblemished surface. Even though Petrides explored a distant past that was sometimes painful for his country and his family, he chooses to commit to the future. Through Kore, the artist asks viewers to remember but, more importantly, to imagine and create better days.
Hellenic Heads is another, fundamental tile in the great mosaic that is art history. Not only does Petrides explore the history of his own family and Greece, he also takes viewers on a journey into European sculpture. The six busts are an investigation into how previous sculptors addressed the themes of human suffering, resilience, and hope. By referencing Michelangelo, Rodin, and the Classical masters, Petrides draws a line that connects his contemporary exploration to Ancient Greece, the High Renaissance period, and the late 19th century. His contemporary fingerprint adds a personal yet universal character to the practice of sculpting. Visitors have the unique opportunity not only to learn about important events in Greek history, but also to reflect on the universal messages that Petrides conveys. Petrides, with and through his art, embodies, embraces, and celebrates the triumph of a golden hope over a dark, gnarled past. It is left to us to find our own unknown, unexplored past, weave our new self with the old, heal our scars and transform them into bright, new paths.