The works of great artists are never static or one-dimensional. The paintings of Haiti currently displayed at the Theocharakis Foundation are read differently by each generation. His familiar and recognizable little men were born to give way to the creator, who would have turned 100 this year. Consequently, he survived some of the most difficult times for the country: occupation, civil war, seven years.

The recently opened exhibition includes paintings, sculptures and constructions, as well as a rare self-portrait of the artist, created by him at the age of 20, portraits of his family and wife, the sculptor Gabriella Simosi, with whom they worked. together in Paris.

A couple in life and in art, they are a rare case of Greek artists who went one way, but each eventually chose his own direction.

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Simosi is an uneducated artist in Greece, and few people know her work in detail. And while a tribute to her husband and father of her child, who has always received the lion’s share of recognition, it is worth a trip to Vassilisis Sofias to see her own compositions included in the exhibition. She herself destroyed her sculptures very often, degraded, and Vasilisa Vassilikos and his wife Vasso Papantoniou can be congratulated when in 1999 they made great efforts to collect what was left for a presentation in Paris. It was there that I first discovered her, and since then I have loved and admired her work. So, if Gaitis is more or less famous and always charming, Simosi is an unexpected gift for the viewer in honor.

A student of Tombre, she continued her studies in France, where she lived with Haiti. Focus on the human form in an abstract way. Her mutilated sculptures often have echoes of ancient statues. He also often turned to the animal kingdom for inspiration, creating elephants and horses or creating hybrid forms.

Her daughter, Loretta Haiti, has tried to preserve the artistic legacy of her parents, who were once separated as a couple but certainly influenced each other.