“I am very upset. England is a horror. Everything is foggy. Cloudy. Raining. I will die. 3 minas horis ilios,” were misspelled sentences on the back of a postcard sent to his Greek friends from a trip to his native Britain in 1954 by John Craxton. He had already discovered our homeland in 1946, painting Poros in company with Lucian Freud, even saying at the time: “I don’t feel so British anymore. In Greece, I found the identity of a man. This new world inspired me creatively and arranged me socially and financially.” From 1960, his life was divided between Chania and Hampstead, and he behaved more like a Cretan than a northern European.

A gem exhibition in the main building of the Benaki Museum, extended until September 25 (don’t miss it, it will be a shame), introduces the Greek public to this artist, who could be the hero of the Roman, if not the narrator of his 20th century bohemia. This is not the first time we see some of the British work at the exhibition. The magnificent exhibition organized by Evita Arapoglu a few years ago, again at the Benaki Museum, about the friendship of Craxton, Hatsikiriaku-Ghikas and Leigh Fermor against the backdrop of Mani, Crete and Corfu, was a mesmerizing impression of the charm of a magical place.

Shortly before the end of summer – not calendrically, since it has already ended, but primarily psychologically – a visit to the Craxton exhibition called “Greek Soul” offers us eternal summer. What did the widely traveled painter feel when he began to work under the Mediterranean light, which literally transformed his work. His painter sang of life and nature, captured the movement of a group of young Greeks when they dance, and cats when they curled up, leaves of trees when they rustle. The tribute features the knowledge and flair of Craxton biographer Ian Collins.