World famous artist Chryssa has passed away

A very important sculptor of modern art, one of the most important Greek women sculptors of all time who excelled in the international art scene, known as Chryssa, born Chryssa Varda, has passed away.

The sculptor was born in Greece and lived in the USA, specifically New York. She was born on December 31, 1933, in a famous Mani family but which lived poorly in Athens; her father died when Chryssa was just a baby. She studied Social Welfare in Athens in 1953 but with the encouragement of her teachers continued her studies in Paris for a year. In 1954s he continued her studies at the School of Fine Arts in San Francisco, California for another year. From 1957 she settled in New York , where she opened her workshop. There she was influenced by the city 's bustling center and in particular the view of Times Square and its lights.

Her career took off as soon as she finished her studies. Her sculptures are quite radical. Her first solo exhibition in the famous Betty Parsons gallery was a great success and the Guggenheim museum gave her a solo exhibition in the same year. She is one of the few Greek artists in the history of modern art that had this honor.

Many critics believe that Chryssa was one of the harbingers of minimalism. The use of letters and neon are characteristic of her works in general. Not at all "nice", "female" or delicate, the large sculptures do impress the spectator. In 1967, she created Clytemnestra, a sculpture currently outside the Athens Concert Hall.

In 1992 she returned to Athens for the first time after 35 years, opening a studio in Neos Kosmos but soon afterwards returned again to America.

She has exhibited her work in many famous museums and galleries around the world including the Museum of Modern Art in New York (MoMA), Minneapolis' Walker Art Center (1968), Whitney (1972), Museum of Modern Art in Montreal (1974), Museum of Modern Art in Paris (1979), National Art Gallery in Athens, Institutes of Contemporary Art in Boston and London and has participated in various exhibitions such as the Biennale of São Paulo (1963, 1969) and Venice (1972). Also, she had met distinguished artists while living and working in New York.

Her work Mott Street (1983), influenced by Manhattan's Chinatown, is now located in the Evangelismos station of the Athens Metro. She has also given some of her work to the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and the National Museum of Contemporary Art.