Centennial Speaker Series - Gregory Kondos

GREGORY KONDOS

Recognized as one of the world's most prominent California landscape artists, Gregory Kondos has won numerous prizes and has works in permanent collections of many museums, including the Yosemite Museum, where he has been a member of the Artist-in-Residence Program since 1989. Among his solo exhibitions is a recent retrospective at the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento.  His paintings, drawings and prints have been described by Art Harlow, Director of the Hearst Art Gallery at St. Mary's College, as "a visual feast for those who love landscape art and the unique beauty of California's diverse terrain."

Raised in Sacramento by Greek immigrant parents, Kanela and Steve Kondos, Mr. Kondos studied at Sacramento City College and later received his Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in Art at the California State University at Sacramento. He taught at Sacramento City College for 27 years and was the founder and director of the campus gallery. With fellow artist and friend, Wayne Thiebaud, Mr. Kondos founded the Artists Cooperative Gallery (now the Artists Contemporary Gallery), one of the earliest showcases for aspiring artists in northern California. Mr. Kondos was recently elected to the National Academy of Design and was featured in the Fall of 1998 in a PBS Special Program documentary, "A Passion for the Land."

According to Victoria Dalkey, art correspondent for the Sacramento Bee, " ...it was a trip to Greece, his ancestral home, in 1963, that changed the course of his work." "His protracted observation of the Greek landscape, sitting alone and watching the sun glint off the ruins of Sounion, waiting for changes in the color, profoundly affected his painting. Coming home with suitcases full of drawings, he began to paint what he had seen with the simplicity and clarity that have become hallmarks of his work."