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Self: The Paintings of Drossos Skyllas
May 5, 1995 - June 3, 1995
Curated by David Russick
Opening Reception: May 5, 5pm - 8pm

Born on the island of Kalymnos in Greece in 1912, Drossos Skyllas was trained as an accountant when his father opposed his early interest in art. He worked for a time in his father's tobacco business before emigrating to the United States shortly after World War II. Settling in Chicago, and encouraged and supported by his wife Iola, he devoted himself solely to his early dream of creative fulfillment. He haunted the Art Institute, advertised himself as a portrait painter, but sold no paintings in his lifetime for his prices equalled those of well-known artists. Skyllas felt his own work deserved as much. Upon his death in 1973, his creative output consisted of thirty-five paintings - portraits and nudes in studied settings, landscapes, still-lifes and religious figures - all characterized by a meticulous attention to detail.

A perfectionist who even made his own brushes when he couldn't find any ready-made that would produce brushstrokes fine enough, Skyllas expressed the desire to do "only pure, realistic paintings" and believed that his work looked "100% like photographs." Everything is captured in a timeless present, seen face on. He saw himself as a classicist, and indeed, its stereotypes - Greek mythology, Greek landscapes, and the icons of the Eastern Church - play a role in his work. But the painstaking concern and equal emphasis given to each minute detail produces an effect more like that of a tapestry and paradoxically, Skyllas' achievment lies in the creation of something much closer to a romanticized medieval style, with a peculiar formality and stillness that approaches the fantastic.