Ο Καλλιτέχνης

000109 Yannis Mitarakis, Self-portrait, 1937, oil on canvas, 103 × 85 cm

Mitarakis was a painter of nature; above all, he was a landscape artist, and it is within this genre that he produced his most significant work. He engaged only rarely with still life, interior scenes, genre painting, or the human figure. This does not mean, however, that he did not at times create nudes and portraits. Over the years, he painted his self-portrait several times. The earliest dates to 1921 (now lost), while the latest (currently housed in the Benaki Museum) was completed around 1960. However, the self-portrait held in the collection of the Municipal Gallery of Chios is the most emblematic. It was painted in 1937, at a time when the artist was entering artistic maturity, abandoning the expressionism of earlier years and adopting a realist style influenced by the work of Demetrios Galanis and André Derain.

In the painting, the artist is depicted frontally, with a sharp gaze fixed directly on the viewer. He wears elegant clothes, indicative of his social standing, and boldly holds his palette and brush, projecting them directly toward the viewer as a testament to his profession. The work is executed with a rough yet firm line, and its colour palette is striking in its restraint, dominated by warm brown tones, with sparse cool whites and greys. The artist appears to have held this work in particularly high regard. He exhibited it in his second solo exhibition, at the Atelier hall, in 1937, as well as at the Venice Biennale in 1940, and kept it in his possession until the end of his life.