A new museum collection, that of the Frissiras Museum is now available in SearchCulture.gr, the cultural search portal developed by the National Documentation Centre (EKT). With the new collaboration with the Frissiras Museum, SearchCulture.gr has managed to collect a significant volume of Modern Greek art, with the number of content providers in the search portal now standing at 62.
The Frissiras collection, which includes about 3,000 paintings, prints and sculptures by 272 artists, is the life's work of patron, collector and lawyer Vlassis Frissiras, founder of the Frissiras Museum in Plaka.
‘In 1972 I tentatively began my collection. The reason for the creation of the collection lies in my unfulfilled desire to become a painter,’ confesses the collector in his autobiography. His first steps in collecting were guided by Dimitris Mytaras, who recommended that he obtained works by young artists, both in order to promote them, and in order to cultivate his eye as a new collector.
Works by Edouard Sacaillan and Michalis Manoussakis were the first in his collection along with well-known foreign artists such as Jean Rustin, Valerio Adami and Andrea Martinelli. Women play an important role in the collection both as subject and as artists, including, for example works by Mary Christea, Eleni Moraiti and Marilena Zamboura, who has painted Vlassis Frissiras’ portrait. There is also an interesting collection of sculptures with works by well-known Greek sculptors such as George Lappas and Nikos Tranos.
The 2,027 items in the SearchCulture.gr collection are mainly figurative works with a clear preference to human figures, which is a dominant theme within the collection. The collection is mainly populated with Greek post-war paintings, especially from the 70s, era time in which three generations of artists co-existed: the heirs of the 30s’ who followed the “native example” in their art, the 60s’ artists with roots in Paris and a new dynamic generation of the 70s, more political in their art and with a tendency towards realism. Portraits especially have a dear place in the collection, with more than 80 portraits of the collector himself or the collector with friends and family.
This content allows researchers, art historians, students and teachers to discover the wealth and scope of Greek artistic heritage, to study the course of an artist through his works even if they are scattered throughout various collections, to navigate the themes and genres expressed through them, discern similarities and differences in the work of each artist.
EKT and the digital public space for culture
In co-operation with leading organisations, EKT promotes the idea of a digital public space for culture produced in Greece. SearchCulture.gr aggregates content from major collections, while constantly expanding the available cultural content. At the same time, EKT contributes to the promotion of Greek culture by contributing to the European digital library Europeana. The objective is to spread the knowledge with minimum restrictions, creating new ways to understand culture today and cultural heritage, and to ensure citizens' access to public cultural goods.
Note: The above work of Valsamaki Chrisa (Ρast is a solvent, return to the stars, 2017, acrylic on paper) belongs to the Frissiras Museum collection with licence Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 GR)