Title of the sculpture: Odysseas Elytis

Location: Dexamenis Square, Kolonaki

Construction: 1977

Material: Brass

Sculptor: Giannis (Yannis) Pappas

Description: Brass statue of Odysseas Elytis. The poet is depicted standing upright, wearing simple clothes: trousers and a short-sleeved shirt. The statue is mounted on a low square pedestal made of limestone.

A few words about the Poet: 

Odysseas Elytis -pen name of Odysseas Alepoudelis- (1911 - 1996), is one of the most important Greek poets of the post-war period. He was awarded the State Poetry Prize in 1960 and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1979. He appeared in 1935 with poems in the magazine Ta Nea Grammata -the main promoter of new poetry- influenced by elements of surrealism (in the same year Andreas Empeirikos' Blast Furnace was also published, with which surrealism appeared in Greece). The collection Orientations (1940) and The Sun the First (1943) are characterized by light, the Aegean Sea, the joy of life. In 1959 Axion Esti (It Is Worthy) was published, a high point in Greek literature. Elytis manages to combine the individual and collective experience of the Greeks, approaching history and tradition mainly through the timelessness of the Greek language. He formed a personal poetic idiom and is considered one of the innovators of Greek poetry.

A few words about the Sculptor: The sculptor Giannis (Yannis) Pappas (1913 - 2005) was elected professor at the Sculpture Department of the Athens School of Fine Arts in 1953. He taught there until 1978, and from 1959 and for ten years he was the director. Already in 1937 he had been awarded a gold medal at the Paris International Exhibition and the National Order of Merit of Italy, in 1972 he was elected as a corresponding member of the French Academy of Fine Arts and in 1980 as a member of the Academy of Athens. 

Sources:
Politis, L. (2017). History of Modern Greek Literature. Athens: M.I.E.T. (NBG Cultural Foundation) p. 293, 294, 296
Antonopoulou, Z. (2003). The sculptures of Athens: Open Air Sculpture 1834 - 2004. Athens: Potamos.