Prassinos Mario

Was born in Constantinople in 1916. His family settled in France in 1922, due to the persecutions of the Ataturk regime. Memories from this adventure marked his psyche. His choices did not come from systematic studies of painting, but from his early acquaintance with subjects of art and literature, within the family environment. From an early age he was associated with surrealist circles and with the French intelligentsia in general.
His first solo exhibition in Paris (1938, Billiet-Pierre Vorms) showed obvious surrealist influences. After the war of the '40s, his painting will be more in line with the atmosphere of the new Ecole de Paris. From 1948 he exhibited regularly at the Galerie de France (until 1976).
In 1949 he acquired French citizenship and in 1951 he settled permanently in Provence. There he intensively engaged in tapestry design and began to paint their natural surrounding hills, applying a special writing with overlapping lines and spots. This central part of his work also includes the landscapes from Spetses, which he designed on his first trip to Greece, in 1958.
In the field of portraiture, his most important works (after 1962) are peculiar portraits of members of his family or other personalities, which are sometimes rendered abstractly with color spots, sometimes design with distortions or symbolic references, as personal comments about the person depicted.
The last thematic sections of his painting were the Turkish landscapes (1970-1981), the Trees (after 1980) and the Peintures du Supplice, for the Notre Dame de Pitié Chapel in Saint-Remy-de-Provence.
He collaborated with Gallimard Publications and illustrated numerous books. He staged important theatrical performances. He created over 150 tapestries and many sculptures.
He has written texts on art and published the books Les Pretextats (1973) and La Colline tatouée (1983).
He was honored with the titles: Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres (1961), Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (1966) and Officier des Arts et des Lettres (1981).
He has had solo exhibitions in almost all European countries and in the USA. He appeared regularly in Greece after his first solo show (1966, Merlin). His work has been presented in many group and international exhibitions, as well as in several retrospectives, in France, Belgium and Greece, before and after his death.
Donation Mario Prassinos has been operating in Saint-Remy-de-Provence since 1986 (the year of his death in Eygalières, southern France), with 108 works donated by the painter to the French state in 1985.
In 2005 a monograph on his work was published (Actes Sud, Arles, France).