Inauguration of the temporary exhibition
“Yiannoúlis Halepás: coming back home to Pýrgos”
at the Museum of Marble Crafts
Tuesday 17th July, at 7:30pm

Organised by the Piraeus Bank Group Cultural Foundation (PIOP) in collaboration with the National Gallery-Aléxandros Soútsos Museum (EPMAS), “Yiannoúlis Halepás: coming back home to Pýrgos” is a temporary exhibition commemorating the 80th anniversary since the Tinian sculptor’s death (1938).

The exhibition’s opening will take place on Tuesday 17th July (at 7:30pm) at the Museum of Marble Crafts in the village of Pýrgos, on Tinos.

The exhibition includes original drawings and works in plaster of Paris by the outstanding Greek sculptor from the National Gallery’s collections. In addition to these, thirty five sketches by Halepás belonging to the private collection of Nikólaos Doúkas are being presented to the public for the first time, while the authentic photographic material enriching the exhibition is from the archives of Konstantínos P. Kalaïtzídis.

At visitors’ every step, Pýrgos, a living sculpture museum, reveals magnificent examples of the crafting of marble. Among all of these, a single name defies any common measure: Yiannoúlis Halepás, a figure that continues to move people, with a totally unique place in Modern Greek sculpting. Through his early work, he belongs to the 19th century, while his second and third creative periods put him firmly in the 20th century. Through the famous Sleeping female figure in the First Cemetery of Athens he gained repute and glory from early on. Forty years of absence, his gradual discovery by scholars of the time and a great acknowledgement during his last years on Tinos created, in Athens, the legend of a saint, a beacon in the field of art: an artist who conquers modernity regardless of constraints and restrictions.

The exhibition on “Yiannoúlis Halepás: coming back home to Pýrgos” at the Museum of Marble Crafts has an undeniable uniqueness: it places Halepás’ overall work in its “natural” space, illuminating new interpretative angles. His works, whether drawings or sculptures, placed beside the works of his fellow villagers plying the same craft, most of whom were collaborators of his family’s workshop (Kapariás, the Lyrítis menfolk, members of the Lampbadítis family, and others), but also next to works by his elderly father, Ioánnis Halepás, form a unique whole, a moving joining of tesserae composing the mosaic that represents the history of marble crafting and sculpting on Tinos.

The exhibition was curated by Alexándra Gouláki-Voutyrá, professor at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, in collaboration with Tónia Yiannoudákis, curator at the National Gallery. The well-documented catalogue with rich illustrations (published by PIOP Publications) was authored by Alexándra Gouláki-Voutyrá with the contribution of Tónia Yiannoudákis.

The exhibition “Yiannoúlis Halepás: coming back home to Pýrgos” is part of
the activities marking the European Year of Cultural Heritage 2018.

The exhibition runs from: the 18th July through to the 30th September 2018
Opening hours: daily, except Tuesdays, 10am-6pm
Closed on: 15th August

Museum of Marble Crafts
Pýrgos, GR-842 01 Pánormos Tínou
T: (+30) 22830 31290 | www.piop.gr
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