Anastasios Alevizos – Tassos

Tassos (Anastasios Alevizos) was one of the leading Greek engravers, both in the field of artistic and applied engraving. In his work he combines folk tradition with modern concepts of his art. Joined from his teenage years in the KKE, he characterized engraving as the art of the people. He served an idiosyncratic military art “that knows how to combine the dead Christ with Che Guevara and the mourning angels with the rebels of a permanent Resistance”, as it has been written.

Anastasios Alevizos was born on March 25, 1914 in the village of Hastemi (now Lefkohora) in Messinia. In 1919 he settled in Athens and ten years later, after having worked in various printing houses, he began his painting apprenticeship with Giorgos Kotsakis.

“Mesimeri”, 1952 – Woodcut on paper In 1930 he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts (ASKT), where after the three preliminary years he studied sculpture with Thomas Thomopoulos (1932-1933) and painting with Umberto Argyros (1933-1934) and Konstantinos Parthenis (1934-1937). At the same time, he was one of the first students in the newly established engraving workshop of Yannis Kefallinos.

In 1936 he held his first solo exhibition with engravings and drawings in the hall of the Eleftheroudaki bookstore and two years later he became a member of the Group of Greek Painters and Engravers, which in the same year organized its 1st Panhellenic Exhibition.

In 1938 he began his collaboration with the magazine “Nea Estia” and in 1940 with “Piraika Grammata”, where for a number of years he illustrated short stories, stories, etc. Throughout his artistic creation, he was involved in the illustration of publications, books, magazines, albums and diaries.

During the German occupation, he took part as an executive of EPON and EAM in the National Resistance. He was the secretary of the EAM of Artists and with other artists contributed through his art to the struggles for liberation. Tassos’ contribution to the illegal resistance press was special and valuable.

The most important publication of the organized struggle of the Greek people for their freedom was the “Elephant of ELAS – EAM”, which was released on March 25, 1943, with woodcuts by himself, Vasos Katrakis, his comrade Loukias Maggioros and Giorgos Velissaridis. His participation in the albums released in 1945 (“For the thousand-dollar freedom” and “The Altar of Freedom”) was important.

A. Tassos working on the composition “November 17, 1973” on June 10, 1974. (Photo: Sparou Karachristou) From 1948 until the end of his life, he was the artistic consultant of the historical graphic arts company Aspiotis-ELKA, while he also collaborated with the School Book Publishing Organization in the illustration of elementary and high school books. From 1957 to 1967 he designed the ELTA stamps and from 1961 to 1985 the stamps of the Republic of Cyprus. In 1959 he took over the direction of the Graphic Arts Department of the Athens Technological Institute (ATI), a position he held until 1967.

During the dictatorship he lived in self-exile abroad. In 1977, after the collapse of the junta, he was one of the founding members of the Panhellenic Cultural Movement (PAPOK), an artistic organization of the KKE, while he was a member of the board of directors of the National Gallery.

He was one of the founding members of the artistic group “Stathmi”, while at the same time he participated in its exhibitions. Tassos’ work has been presented in a series of individual and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad (Venice Biennale, Lugano, Florence, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, Capri Woodcut Triennial and elsewhere).

Tassos died on October 13, 1985 in Athens, aged 71. The following year the widow of Loukias Maggioros with his friends and associates founded the Society of Visual Arts “A. Tassos”, dedicated to promoting his work. In 1987, the National Gallery honored his memory with a large retrospective exhibition of his work.