Athens School of Fine Arts

The Athens School of Fine Arts (ASFA; Greek: Ανωτάτη Σχολή Καλών Τεχνών, ΑΣΚΤ, literally: Highest School of Fine Arts), is Greece's premier Art school[citation needed] whose main objective is to develop the artistic talents of its students.

History

The Athens School of Fine Arts was established on 12 January 1837, known as the School for the Arts. In the beginning the School of Arts included three departments: the Crafts' School (part-time school), Industrial Crafts' School (full-time school) and Fine Arts School (full-time higher education).

The third department was the real ancestor of today’s School of Fine Arts and began to function as a daily school in 1840. In this department subjects like painting, sculpture, architecture, lithography, woodcut, geometry and cartography were taught. The same year Duchess of Plaisance who lived in Greece contributed in upgrading the school. She enriched the school's program with new types of painting lessons and called the French painter Bonirote (one of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres's students) in order to teach oil painting courses. Bonirote was a teacher there until 1843.

In 1843 with royal decree School of Fine Arts was promoted in a five-year study Higher Education School. Director of the School was the famous architect Lissandros Kautantzoglou. During the period 1844–1862 the studies' program was influenced by Europe's Academies of Fine Arts which taught neoclassicism. Some of the great students of this period finally became teachers in the school. Some of them are Nikiphoros Lytras and Nicholaos Gysis. In 1872, after a donation of George Averoff, a new building in Patission Avenue road was constructed that was later named National Technical University of Athens.

In 1910 the faculty acquired the independence from the named National Technical University. The same year the first four women were accepted to the School of Fine Arts.

In 1923, the new Director, Nikolaos Lytras (Nikiphoros' son), reorganized the workshops to give them more independence and promoted newer styles of painting.

In 1930, Education Minister Georgios Papandreou completely revamped and upgraded the old school, and gave it its current name (Ανώτατη Σχολή Καλών Τεχνών).

In 1929 Konstantinos Parthenis started teaching in the school. His lessons were mostly about the analysis of visual perception and the plastic transformation of the incoming visual information. Many other famous artists were occupied in Athens School of Fine Arts: the sculptor Costas Dimitriadis, the engraver Yannis Kefallinos, the writer and historian Pantelis Prebelakis. Since 1947 Yiannis Moralis, Georgios Mauroidis, Constantinos Grammatopoulos and Spyros Papaloukas, Panayiotis Tetsis, Nikos Kessanlis, Dimitris Mytaras, Georgios Nikolaidis, Ilias Dekoylakos and the architect Savvas Kontaratos taught the principles of Modern Greek art.

HQAA evaluation

An external evaluation of all academic departments in Greek universities will be conducted by the Hellenic Quality Assurance and Accreditation Agency (HQAA) in the following years.

Notable alumni

Vangelis (1943-), Composer and Painter

Athanase Apartis (1899–1972), sculptor

Venia Bechrakis (1974-), artist

Georgios Bonanos (1863–1940), sculptor

Yannoulis Chalepas (1851–1938), sculptor

Vasileios Hatzis (1870–1915), painter

Giorgio de Chirico (1888–1978), painter

Demetrios Farmakopoulos (1919–1996), painter

Alekos Fassianos (1935-), painter

Dimitrios Geraniotis (1871–1966), painter

Giorgios Gounaropoulos (1890–1977), painter

Nikolaos Gyzis (1842–1901), painter

Georgios Jakobides (1853–1932), painter

Vaso Katraki (1914–1988), engraver

Aggelika Korovessi (1952-), sculptor

Ioannis Kossos (1822–1875), sculptor

Lazaros Pandos (1958-),[2][3] painter, photographer

Sophia Laskaridou (1882–1965), painter

Nikiforos Lytras (1832–1904), painter

Michael Nikolinakos (1923-1994), actor, painter

Yiannis Maltezos (1913-1987), painter

Yiannis Moralis (1916–2009), painter

Dimitris Mytaras (1934-), painter

Aglaia Papa (1904–1984)

Dimitris Papaioannou (1964-), choreographer, visual artist

Theodoros Papagiannis (1942-), sculptor

Heleni Polichronatou (1959-)

Georgios Prokopiou (1876–1940), painter

Georgios Roilos (1867–1928), painter

Michael Tombros (1889–1974), sculptor

Yannis Tsarouchis (1910–1989), painter

Spyridon Vikatos (1878–1960), painter

Spyros Vassiliou (1903–1985), painter

Thanos Leivaditis (1934-2005), actor, screenwriter