Constantine Andreou

Biography

In 1939 three sculptures by Andreou were rejected from the Panhellenic exhibition competition in Athens, the Panellinio. In 1942 he submitted the same works to the same competition, and this time he was accused of the opposite: the figures looked so lifelike that the jury suspected casts taken from nature. Memos Makris, John Miliades and Nikos Nikolaou came to his defence, and the scandal brought him his first fame.

He was born on 24 March 1917 in São Paulo, to Greek parents who had emigrated to Brazil a few years earlier. In 1925 the family moved back to Greece. His father, it is said, came from Cyprus and had lived in Egypt, and his mother was an Athenian; they settled first in Patras and then in Athens.

From youth he had to earn his living: he worked as a carpenter and cabinetmaker while studying technical drawing; by one account this began in 1932 because of the family’s money troubles. He finished school in 1935 and took up sculpture in the same year. By other accounts he began modelling as early as 1932, at first self-taught, and from 1935 under a teacher.

In 1940 Andreou was drafted into the Greek army, and during the occupation he took part in the Resistance. He did not give up his work or his studies. In 1945 he won a French government scholarship and sailed to France with other Greek intellectuals on the ship Mataroa. He lived first in Paris, in Montparnasse, and later moved to the Essonne department.

In 1947 he devised a technique of his own: he began welding sheets of brass. He is regarded as the inventor of this technique. For Andreou it meant a break with traditional modelling and casting. At about the same time he met Le Corbusier, and they worked together, on and off, until 1953. Asked by Le Corbusier where he had learned to work, Andreou, according to the story, answered: “I’m Greek, I carry the knowledge within me.” From Le Corbusier he took the view of architecture as monumental sculpture, and of sculpture as an art subject to the laws of architecture. The sculptor César, it is said, took welding lessons from him.

In Paris he moved in a circle of philosophers in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, where he also met Jean-Paul Sartre. In 1951 he had an exhibition in Paris that showed a change in his manner. At the group exhibition “Seven Greek Sculptors” he was described as the best-known Greek sculptor in the capital. By the end of the decade he was well known in French art. In 1961 and 1962, according to some accounts, he exhibited alongside Picasso, in 1961 with Matisse, and in 1962 with Max Ernst. In 1982 Andreou became chairman of the sculpture section of the Paris Salon d’Automne.

He lived and worked in La Ville-du-Bois, where he had a house and studio on the Grande-Rue. There he made his huge pieces. He gave the town a bronze “Maternity” that stands in front of the Escale hall, and a fresco on wood, “The Circus”, for the library that has borne his name since 1998 (by other accounts, since 1999). In 1977 he bought an old winery on the island of Aegina and converted it into a home. In the summer of 1985, on Aegina, he and the poet Evangelos Andreou, his namesake, produced a cycle of twenty paintings, “Polymorphs”, based on the poet’s book “Restoration of a Stone Stalk”. He also took part in the biennials of Antwerp, the Netherlands, Paris, Venice and Yugoslavia.

In 1988 Andreou received the Grand Prix Antoine Pevsner for his body of work. In 2000 he was given the cross of Knight of the Legion of Honour, and later he was honoured with the Order of Arts and Letters: by some accounts in 2001 as a Commander, by others in 2005 as an Officer.

In 2002 (by other accounts, 2003) he returned to Greece. Andreou died on 8 October 2007 at his house in Athens; according to some reports, he was writing a book and preparing another exhibition. The foundation he had set up in 2004 was meant to promote his work and to give an award to young artists every three years. The first award was given in 2008.