“Yanoulis Halepas: Debits and Credits”: The most comprehensive exhibition on the greatest Greek sculptor at the Teloglion Foundation of Arts

The story of Yanoulis Halepas is one of an ongoing quest for art, of a fall and rise. The prominent Greek sculptor from the island of Tinos ‘relates’ his life through his works. From the island’s marble sculpture workshops to the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and his early recognition as an artist; and from Athens and the Sleeping Beauty through to the Psychiatric Hospital of Corfu and the triumph of his artistic maturity; an exhibition on the tragic life and the outstanding work of Yanoulis Halepas.

The exhibition is organized by the Teloglion Foundation of Arts,AUTh, and co-produced by Onassis Culture. Almost the entire oeuvre of Yanoulis Halepas goes on public view for the first time, with a focus on the ‘Account Books’ and his drawings, which provide insights into the mind of their creator, thus enabling interpretations of his sculptures. Heartbreak, mental illness, ‘awakening’ and finally resuming his art practice. Halepas sheds light on the potential and the limits of modern Greek society.

This major exhibition on Halepas was prompted by the recent acquisition of a large body of his sculptures and drawings by the Onassis Foundation, as part of the Onassis Collection. Early works shipped to Bucharest, as well as the artist’s life in Tinos and Athens, are depicted through rare archival photographs, along with works that go on public view for the first time. The Onassis Collection holds a substantial portion of sculptures, drawings, preliminary models and casts, coming from the most important Yanoulis Halepas collection, the one of his nephew, Vassilios, and niece, Irini Halepas, who hosted him in their Athens home between 1930-1938.

“The exhibition Debits and Credits – its name inspired from the account books of the artist’s father’s marble workshop – underscores the exchange among patterns and themes in Halepas’s oeuvre. Borrowings from and references to other sculptors, both the artist’s contemporaries and earlier ones. It is this subversive power of reciprocity that the Onassis Foundation seeks to embrace. An individual’s creative urge, even when it comes into conflict with the rules others have set. An artist’s account of the world which breaks the mold, letting go of certainties, but keeping faith in one’s own passion. Halepas stands to remind us that many produce yet few can create.”

– Anthony S. Papadimitriou, President of the Onassis Foundation

Onassis Foundation claims that human lies at the center of all action to advance the arts, culture, and education. Yanoulis Halepas, always relevant, through his work and life is a reminder to all about how much can be accomplished by passion in the face of exclusion, denial, invisibility. This is where they collide. The beginning and the end. Our connection with the artist, his work and vision.

The unique catalog that accompanies the exhibition, edited by the researcher, archaeologist, and art historian Alexandra Goulaki-Voutyra, is a fitting complement to this attempt at a re-evaluation of the greatest modern Greek sculptor.