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005858 Yannis Tsarouchis, Portrait of a young man, 1981, Indian ink on paper, 35 × 29.5 cm

Nikos Yialouris is, to this day, the most important artist from Chios and has inextricably linked his painting with the island where he spent his whole life. It is therefore no coincidence that when in the summer of 1981, Yannis Tsarouchis visited Chios in order to give a series of lectures in the Ionian Centre, Yialouris was present. He attended the lectures and, of course, the two artists would have discussed about painting. At that time, Tsarouchis would have given him this particular drawing, perhaps as an “antidoron”, an exchange for a similar gift from Yialouris. “To my friend Yialouris/ Tsarouchis/ 8-7-81 Chios” reads the dedication and a sharp eye will notice how the painter converted 9 to 8 with one line, correcting the date. The drawing is nothing more than a ‟gift”, one of many similar drawings by Tsarouchis that rest today in private collections, in the hands of his friends and companions. Using Indian ink as his only medium, with clean lines, Tsarouchis describes the face of a young man with long hair falling over his shoulders. A curve at the bottom of the paper defines the neckline of his shirt, with the bones of his collarbone just above it. The young man is not a specific portrait but the ‟Tsarouchic” type of youth, formed during the artist's second Parisian period (1967-1975), when his favorite model was young Dominique. And it confirms the influence of Henri Matisse on the work of the great Greek painter.

Yannis Tsarouchis's lectures on painting at the Ionic Centre of Chios in July 1981 have been published [Yannis Tsarouchis, Painting Lessons, Chios 1981, Athens, Agra Publications, 2023 (in Greek)].