Kappa Fine Arts Ltd - S Art Gallery

09/01/2026

17/05/2025

Athanase Apartis (Greek: Αθανάσιος Απάρτης, 24 October 1899 – 1 April 1972) was a Greek sculptor. His busts of famous people and monumental works stand in many public places in Greece.
Athanase Apartis was born on 24 October 1899 in Smyrna, Asia Minor, son of a tailor who had six children. He studied in the studio of the Armenian sculptor Papazian and of the painter Vasilis Ithakisios. He moved to Paris in 1919 to study at the Académie Julian. In October 1919 he was admitted to the École des Beaux Arts for two months and returned to the Academie Julian, where he studied with Paul Landowski and Henri Bouchard. Apartis showed three works in the Salon d'Automne in 1921 where he met Antoine Bourdelle and decided to transfer to Académie de la Grande Chaumière to study with him. Bourdelle helped him to show his work in 1923 at the Salon des Tuileries. Apartis began to obtain commissions in the 1920s and made several busts of prominent people. Helena Venizelos provided him a small grant to live in Paris until 1940, with short return visits to Greece. In 1939 he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honors. He exhibited at the Petit Palais and the Jeu de Paume. His Woman and Child was bought by the French government, and he was asked to make a sculpture of Adonis by the Greek government. During World War II Apartis returned to Greece to work during the German occupation. After the war he lived between Athens and Paris, finally returning to Greece in 1956.He was appointed professor of drawing at the Technological Educational Institute of Athens in 1959 and in 1961 he was appointed a professor of sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts, and he taught until 1969. He died on 1 April 1972 at the age of 72. Apartis was influenced by the antique sculpture in the Louvre and by the work of Auguste Rodin. Antoine Bourdelle had a major influence on his work.[4] While in Paris before the war he often exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, Salon des Tuileries and Salon des Independents, and gave exhibitions at his studio. He exhibited in the Venice Biennale (1950) and São Paulo (1961). In 1984 his work was exhibited in a retrospective at the National Gallery of Greece. The Municipal Art Gallery of Ioannina holds some of his work. His monumental works and busts of famous people are in many public places in Greece.

17/05/2025

COSTAS KLOUVATOS 1921-2007
He was born in 1921 in Athens. At a young age he attended painting classes at the Workshop Dimitris Biskinis. Later, he studies painting at the School of Fine Arts with Professor Dimitris Biskinis. In 1942 he studies sculpture with sculptor Thanassis Apartis who recently had return from Paris and worked at the master’s studio from 1942 to 1954 where he perfected his technique in sculpture. In 1950, he attended the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere in Paris. He studies Ceramics and Art History at the Free Academy of Angelos Prokopiou. He cooperates with the sculptors George Zongolopoulos Christos Kapralos, the architect Dimitris Pikionis among others. In the 1950s, he introduces the concept of “choroplastics”, an art form. Configures indoors and outdoors (monuments, squares, public places, houses) in Greece. In 1952, he made his first choroplastics in Kefalovriso in Epirus (Monument to Victims of German occupation). In 1952, he was taught the art of casting bronze statues in Florence. He became the first artist since the antiquity to bring back the casting technique of the method of lost wax ('cire perdue') process, also operating the first Art Foundry in Greece. In 1959, he became a Founding member of the association "Friends of Bouzianis." In 1960, he organizes and implements an art foundry in the art studio of Christos Kapralos and helps him casting the works in bronze, exhibited in the BIENNALE DI VENEZIA 1962. In 1961, he became a Founding member of the "Group Art A" along with: Yannis Hainis, Demosthenes Kokkinidis, Vasso Katraki, Nikos Kessanlis, Sotiris Sorogas etc. Founding member with Yannis Tsarouchis etc. of the Cultural Movement “Athmonio Theatre”. Participation in international exhibitions: In 1959 First prize of sculpture BIENNALE of Moscow. In 1957 Third prize in SAO PAOLO BIENNALE. In 1959 Commendation in the BIENNALE of Alexandria., 1959 First Prize in National Exposition in Zappeion. In 1965, the 1st International Sculpture Exhibition, the Athens BIENNALE at the Philopappou Hill. In the Nordic countries, Paris, Yugoslavia, North America, London. Major Monuments: “Monument Lost Homelands”, Ascension Square, Vyronas, Athens. The Monument of Education, Island of Chios. The Monument in Psychiko Square, Athens. The Monument Ioannidis in Lithines, Crete. The Monument in Filiates, Epirus. The statue Vyzas, Megara. The Monument "Victims of Occupation", Kefalovriso, Epirus. The Monument in Pelopio, Olympia. The Statue of Spyros Louis at the Olympic Stadium, Athens. The Monument of Lycurgus Kallergis, Piraeus Street, Athens. The Fountain Monument, Markopoulo, Attica. The statue of Yannis Tsarouchis Maroussi, Athens. Bust of Pr. Minister Alexandros Koumoundouros in Campos, Mani. The Monument of the Battle of Pyli Dervenochoria, Viotia.

17/05/2025

Christos Kapralos 1909-1993
Born in Panaitolio, near Agrinio, in 1909, Kapralos went from a young age as an apprentice under local religious painters one of whom was called Georgiadis. He meets around 1927 with Nassos Gerakis, painter, sculptor, journalist and writer, a mentor for Kapralos, urging him to draw, read books and learn French poems. In 1928, aided by the to***co manufacturer loannis Papastratos he goes to Athens, and he enters the School of Fine Arts and studies painting under Oumvertos Argyros. In 1934 he leaves for Paris with a one-year scholarship. For the next four years the French engineer Henri Bonifacy, like another Papastratos, helped him in difficult times and he studied at the Grande Chaumiere and Colarossi Academies under Marcel Gimond. When the War broke, he returned with Yannis Moralis to Greece. He lived at his village till 1946, working in sculptures with clay. He used his mother; his sister and other people close to him as models in his works. At that time, he created his friezes for the Monument to Combat of Pindos with scenes from the War, the German Occupation, the Resistance and the Peacetime. In October 1946 Kapralos has his first solo exhibition at Parnassus; it was the first post-war exhibition of art in Greece. Costas Kotzias, mayor of Athens, donated a piece of land from his own private property in Athens and asked Kapralos' old supporter loannis Papastratos and Admiral Charilaos Liambeis to finance the building of a studio for the sculptor. The sculptor spent the summers from 1952 to 1956 in Aegina where he finished the seven friezes with the reliefs from the Combat of Pindos in limestone. In 1957 the Athens & Piraeus Electrical Co. organised an exhibition of Kapralos works in their Athens showroom. In late 1960 the sculptor Costas Klouvatos helped Kapralos to set up a bronze foundry next to his studio, where he used the old method of cire perdue to cast the works he exhibited at the Biennale of Venice in 1962. In the years from 1963 to 1973 he exhibited in America, at the Martha Jackson and Park galleries in 1963, the Albert White in Toronto and the Cincinnati Art Museum in 1967. He also participated in group shows in Germany, Italy and the USA. In 1975 he exhibited at the Hilton Art Gallery in Athens, and in 1975 he represented Greece at the Biennale of Sao Paolo. In 1991 the Christos and Souli Kapralos Foundation was established in Aegina; the Foundation opened the Christos Kapralos Museum with premises in Aegina and in Agrinio. The Aegina Museum houses, large number of micro sculptures made of baked clay, a series of manlike seats made of limestone, wooden sculptures bronze works and clay vessels and the Agrinio Museum, presented by the "Papastratos To***co Company", houses early sculptures from the 1930-1950 period. Christos Kapralos died in Athens in 1993.

16/05/2025