Artist’s CV
Germenis was born in Fiskardo, Kefalonia, in 1896, but grew up in Corfu, where he took his first painting lessons at the Corfu School of Art. He later continued his studies in Athens, where, in addition to the Law School of the University of Athens, he also studied at the Athens School of Fine Arts (ASKTA) with teachers such as Georgios Roilos, Georgios Iakovidis, Spyridon Vikatos and Dimitrios Geraniotis in painting and Thomas Thomopoulos in sculpture. At some point, he abandoned law to devote himself to artistic studies.
After completing his studies, he traveled to Europe and the Greek provinces. He stayed in Ethiopia for five years, as the official painter of Emperor Haile Selassie, decorated his mausoleum and painted the icons of the Church of the Holy Trinity in Addis Ababa. He organized three solo exhibitions of his works and took part in many group exhibitions.[5][6]
Vasos Germenis’ paintings are mainly seascapes, landscapes, portraits and ethnography, inspired by an academic perception with the color of late impressionism.
Germenis, in parallel with his painting work, was involved in sculpture. In 1950 he created the “Monument to the Fallen of the Royal Navy” in Skaramanga. He also sculpted a number of realistic busts, such as those of Dionysios Solomos, Lorentzos Mavilis, Andreas Laskaratos, etc. A marble bust of Dionysios Kokkinos (1883–1967), an academic, historian, prose writer and playwright, by Vasos Germenis, has been placed in the garden at the back of the National Library in Athens.
Germenis received the Golden Cross of the Order of the Phoenix and the Golden Cross of George I as honorary distinctions. He died in 1966 in Athens.
