“I don’t sell art. I make people fall in love with the artworks I adore” ALEXANDROS IOLAS

Exceptional artists all over the world that collaborated with Alexander Iolas. Most of them were close friends. His galleries all around the world featured the most important modern and contemporary artists. Iola’s personality and creativity inspired some of the most iconic works of art.

lexander Iolas was born in Alexandria, Egypt, as Constantinos Coutsoudis. He was the firstborn son of Andreas and Persephone Koutsoudi. Three more siblings followed, Dimitrios, Niki and Iro. They grew up in Alexandria and were the offspring of a wealthy cotton merchant family.

Alexander Iolas, however, showed an inclination towards the arts from early on, so in 1928 he decided to spread his wings and move to Athens, on Konstantinos Kavafis’s suggestion, with whom he had come in contact thanks to the Physical Education professor at his school, Michail Hadjidimitriou – whose literary nickname was Glafkos Alithersis – and to Nikos K. Nikolaidis, one of the most important writers of the Interwar Period.

In Greece, Alexander Iolas began to associate with an important circle of artistic people, such as Kostis Palamas and his daughter Nausicaa, Angelos Sikelianos, who even played a role as a teacher in Iolas’s life, but also Eva Palmer-Sikelianos. The wish he inherited from Sikelianos and which he followed faithfully until 1976 was “Grow Eternal”.

source: iolasofficial.com

© Eleni – Koutsoudi – Iolas archive

© Eleni – Koutsoudi – Iola archive