Memas Kalogiratos

Early years

Memas Kalogiratos was born in 1940 in the village of Petrikata, Kefalonia. His family home was burned during the Occupation, and the family subsequently moved to Patras, where he completed his schooling. In 1957, he met and became a student of the icon painter and artist Georgios Papadimitriou, who signed his works under the pseudonym “Phaon”. Phaon had an academic background, and his iconographic style followed the Western-oriented tradition.

Studies in Athens

Kalogiratos later moved to Athens, where he studied sculpture at the Athens School of Fine Arts from 1960 to 1966, receiving distinctions during his studies. He initially attended the First Sculpture Workshop, directed by the school’s director and academic Giannis Pappas (1913–2005), an artist who combined an experimental, innovative sculptural language with major commissions from Greece’s upper bourgeoisie.

When the Second Sculpture Workshop was established in 1961 and entrusted to Thanasis Apartis (1899–1972), Kalogiratos did not hesitate to follow him, deeply appreciating both Apartis’s Parisian career and recognition, as well as his exceptional character.

First artistic appearance

The young artist’s first public presentation took place in 1965 with a solo exhibition at the Municipal Gallery of Patras, while he was still a student. At the same time, shaped by the particular conditions and struggles of his era, he took part in the student movement of “114”, aspiring to a democratic and independent Greece.

The dictatorship that followed would cause him deep psychological trauma, as did the tensions of the Cold War, the war in Vietnam, and the dramatic collapse of the hopes that had spoken of peace, disarmament, and global prosperity.

Sculpture as labour and lived experience

For reasons of survival, and without ever abandoning sculpture, he worked at the same time as a labourer, bronze caster, and assistant in the construction of sculptural monuments. Among other projects, he assisted his teacher, Apartis, in the erection of the monumental statue of Chrysostomos of Smyrna in Nea Smyrni Square.

He later became an assistant and collaborator of Christos Kapralos, an artist who influenced him deeply, both through his aesthetic vision and through his uncompromising ethos.

Solo and group exhibitions

Dynamic and uncompromising himself, Kalogiratos sought to present his work in solo exhibitions. These included presentations at the Ora Cultural Centre in 1970, Studio Gallery in 1971, the Aretousa Hotel in 1973, and, after the restoration of democracy, Dada Gallery in Pangrati in 1981.

His participation in group exhibitions during this period was extensive, both in Athens and Thessaloniki, as well as at the Skironio Museum of Sculpture, in Larissa, and elsewhere. He also took part in events and interventions organised by the Association of Sculptors at the Athens Conservatoire and by the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece.

At the same time, he participated in sculpture competitions for the erection of monuments. During the 1970s, his work was frequently referenced and reviewed, sometimes in the respected art magazine Zygos, published by Frantzis Frantzeskakis, and at other times in the visual arts criticism of the newspaper Rizospastis, signed by the well-known art critic and collaborator of Tony Spiteris, Nikos Alexiou.

Major presentations

Among his important solo exhibitions are those he organised in 1985 at the Cultural Centre of Kourkoumelata, Kefalonia; in 1987 at the Philharmonic Hall of Argostoli; and in 1995 at Entasis Gallery in Athens and at the Psychiko Art Hall in the same year.

He later exhibited at the well-known Ersi Gallery in Dexameni, Kolonaki, in 1998 and 2001. In 2003, 2004, and 2008, he presented works at Polytropon Gallery, at the Castle of Saint George in Kefalonia.

Publications and documentation

In 2015, the carefully prepared study by Professor Dora F. Markatou, “Memas Kalogiratos Sculpture Collection”, was published in Argostoli. In this publication, Stalina Voutsina compiled a detailed catalogue and bibliography, while the afterword included texts dedicated to the sculptor by Petros Petratos, philologist; Dionysis Georgopoulos; the art critic Nikos Alexiou; and Eva Delavinia.

In 2022, with the support of the Hellenic Diaspora Foundation, Manos Stefanidis’s volume “Hephaestus Bound. The House-Museum of Memas Kalogiratos” was published. The book is dedicated to the sculptor’s distinctive world: his studio, sculpture collection, and house-museum in Kefalonia.

Part of the publication’s text derives from the dialogues of the film “Nostimon Imar”, a 2022 Hellenic Diaspora Foundation production directed by Giannis Katomeris.

Retrospective exhibitions

In the same year, the retrospective exhibition “Tragic Muse” was presented in Athens, in the former courthouse buildings on Santaroza Street. The exhibition brought back into focus the tragic, human-centred, and deeply existential core of Kalogiratos’s sculpture, highlighting figures that converse with ancient tragedy, myth, history, and contemporary human anguish.

This was followed in Patras by the retrospective exhibition “The Return”, at the Hellenic Diaspora Foundation. The exhibition held particular significance for the artist, as it marked his return to the city where he lived, grew up, and made his first artistic appearance.

The exhibition presented a broad and representative selection of his sculptural and painterly production, confirming the enduring relationship of his work with the human figure, memory, and public space.

Recent presentations

In 2025, works by Kalogiratos were included in the exhibition “Alive Heritage: Matter and Memory – Greek Artists of the Diaspora”, presented at the Archaeological Museum of Patras by the Archaeological Museum of Patras and the Hellenic Diaspora Foundation, on the occasion of International Museum Day.

There, Kalogiratos’s sculpture entered into dialogue with the ancient memory of the city and with works by important Greek artists of the Diaspora, highlighting the continuity between ancient form, contemporary art, and human-centred creation.

In the same year, the exhibition “The Inner Form: Sculptural Pulsations of Memas Kalogiratos” was presented in Syros, in the atrium of the Ermoupoli Town Hall, as part of the “Syros Culture 2025” programme. Through thirteen works, the exhibition illuminated the artist’s relationship with bronze, the human figure, silence, inner tension, and the memory of matter.

Subsequently, the sculpture exhibition “Reception into Memory” was presented at the reception area of the Central Port of Patras. In a place of departure, return, and transition, Kalogiratos’s works acquired a particular symbolic resonance, entering into dialogue with the sea, movement, memory, and the experience of the Diaspora.

The exhibition was realised with the contribution of the Hellenic Diaspora Foundation and reaffirmed the enduring presence of Kalogiratos’s work in public space and in the contemporary cultural life of Patras.

The contribution of the Hellenic Diaspora Foundation

Through publications, exhibitions, film, and recent presentations in museums, institutions, and public spaces, the Hellenic Diaspora Foundation has made a substantial contribution in recent years to the promotion, documentation, and renewed positioning of Memas Kalogiratos’s work within the contemporary artistic landscape.