Biography

Emmanouil Lampakis (E.L.), Georgios’ younger brother, was born in Athens in 1859. He studied at the Athens School of Art.

In 1881, he travelled to Germany to continue his education at the Munich Academy under Nikolaos Gyzis on a scholarship from the Panhellenic Sacred Foundation of the Evangelistria of Tinos.

A student and firm friend of Nikolaos Gyzis, he was influenced by his teacher’s work. Emmanouil Lampakis was a low-key painter who painted portraits, genre scenes and—chiefly—religious subjects in the manner of Ludwig Thiersch, whom both he and his brother Georgios admired immensely. His religious works stand out for the simplicity of their expression and the sensitivity of their rendering.

In 1883, he took part in the regular exhibition of Munich’s Art Society with his Head of an old peasant woman.

When it was founded in 1884, the Christian Archaeological Society included both Georgios—who had played a leading role in its creation—and Emmanouil Lampakis amongst its members, as well as their uncle, Nikolaos Platis, a painter and engraver.

In 1885, he returned from Munich and exhibited a work at the sculptor Georgios Vroutos’ studio on July 8. One year later, in July 1886, he showed two of his works for the first time at the Melas Hotel in Kifissia. The paintings depicted:

An Italian confessing his love to a young maid

The Enneakrounos, with bathing nymphs.

In 1886, Nikolaos Gyzis inherited his family home in the village of Sklavochorio on Tinos. Having been asked to report on the house, E.L. travelled to Sklavochorio, where he painted Gyzis’ family home. The painting, which E.L. sent to Gyzis in Munich by post, is now held in the Panhellenic Sacred Foundation of the Evangelistria of Tinos.

In 1888, as part of the festivities held to celebrate the silver jubilee of King George I of Greece, the 4th Olympia were held in the Zappeion Megaron and its grounds.

Artists also took part in the event with paintings, sculptures, wood cuts and wood carvings. All in all, nine of E.L.’s works were featured in the event, with his Oil painting of an ox’s head earning him an honourable mention. This was the second time E.L. had taken part in the Olympia exhibitions, having previously shown Saint Eirini (woodcut), nine woodcuts of different saints, Niobe’s son (drawing) and Niobe’s Son (oil painting) at the 3rd Olympia in 1875 as a student at the Athens School of Art (;Athens School of Fine Arths).

In 1889, he collaborated with his brothers, the Byzantinist Georgios Lampakis and the photographer, Ioannis Lampakis, in the restoration of Daphne Monastery. There, he worked on the conservation of the Monastery’s mosaics, copied the mosaic depicting St John the Evangelist, and drew the Platytera. In the same year, he took part in the Exposition Universelle in Paris with a genre painting and a portrait of his mother, Margarita, which took first prize.

In January 1893, he showed the icons destined for the church of Agios Stefanos, Paris, in his studio at 22 Speusippou str. in Athens. Having undertaken to decorate the walls of this Greek Orthodox church, Thiersch commissioned E.L. to paint the Twelve Feasts of the Orthodox Year. E.L. was elected a consultant to the Christian Archaeological Society in the same year.

In January 1894, he exhibited his Parthenon at Pepas, a shop on Odos Stadiou. In February of the same year, he exhibited his Blind woman and Ox’s head at the same venue.

In February 1895, he showed a work depicting Two young men dallying with pretty village girls at Katsimbalis’ milliner’s shop. That same year, he took part in the setting up of the Art Union as a founding member, and was elected onto its Board.

In 1896, he exhibited his complete works at the Konstantinos and Athanasios Photographic Studio, winning an award for his Master blacksmith, which was shown in the Paradeisos coffee shop.

In February 1897, he showed his Man aged one hundred at Stamatakis’ florists on Odos Stadiou.

In 1898, he was featured in the Art Union’s “permanent exhibition”.

In 1889, he produced his portrait of Pappoudof, the magnate and first chairman of the Christian Archaeological Society, who had died many years earlier, painting the work from a description of his facial features. The work was commissioned by Pappoudof’s son, Aristeidis Pappoudof. The work earned him praise, and an article in the N. Efimeris on 09/03/1889 describes him as an “aristocrat among artists”. Another article published in the Kairoi newspaper on 22/01/1893 praises E.L. for his application of perspective in religious paintings, arguing that in doing so, he paved the way for modern church painting “without deviating into the copying of nature and the impious striving for effect of the sort produced by the religious artists of the Catholic church and the Italian Renaissance”.

In 1901, he was appointed to teach drawing at the Arsakeion school in Larisa, where he remained until 1902. He subsequently taught at the Athens School of Fine Arts, 1903-1907.

In 1905, he founded a Private Art School for girls on Odos Voulis, following the disbanding of the girls’ department at the Athens School of Fine Arts. However, this proved to be a short-lived venture.

He was a keen supporter of the idea of founding a chair of Byzantine paintings at the Athens School of Fine Arts.

He died in 1909 in the Dromokaition Asylum, having fallen into a pathological melancholy during the last two years of his life. The chronic rickets from which he had long suffered would seem to have contributed to this condition.

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