Adamantios Diamantis, When the People of Cyprus First-Heard the Bad News, 1975
An artist that I admire is painter Adamantios Diamantis. He was the first cypriot artist that accomplished his studies abroad graduating from St. Martins and Royal College of Art in great honours. His work was depicts everyday life of simple workers and farmers of his home land, Cyprus. The history of the island is evident in every painting he created and his love for the people and tradition was his main inspiration. I love the way he painted each person in his monumental paintings with sensitivity and respect. Each and every figure is real and used friends, family and villagers for his sketches and paintings. They ARE Cyprus. Standing in front of his large paintings is a lovely scene, almost spiritual. I was lucky enough to experience this a few days ago when visiting Nicosia for Easter holidays. I couldn’t get enough of examining the expressions and gestures people had in Diamatis’ work. This is exactly what I would like to embody in my work. This spirituality and respectfulness that these paintings evoke.
“Diamantis was born in Nicosia in 1900. He studied art in London at St. Martin’s School of Art (1920-1921) and at the Royal College of Art (1921-1923). From 1926 to 1962 he worked as a professor of Art at the Pancyprian Gymnasium in Nicosia, Cyprus. At the same time, he developed important social and cultural activity. As a Member of the Cyprus Studies Society, he worked for the collection of folk art organized and founded the Cyprus Folk Art Museum, of which he was a director since his foundation in 1950. He died in 1994.
Presentation of his work in solo and group exhibitions in Cyprus and abroad: London, Edinburgh, Athens, Prague, Budapest, Germany, Bucharest, Belgrade, Sofia, Paris.
Awards: Design Award, Royal College of Art, London, 1923. Academy Award, 1976. Excellence in Literature and Arts, Cyprus, 1993.” [1]
“After the tragic events of 1974 with Turkey invading Cyprus and until the end of his life in 1994, Adamantios Diamantis created significant compositions. One of them is the work “When the People of Cyprus First-Heard the Bad News”. In this elongated composition, we recognize the same persons who make up the monumental work of “The World of Cyprus”, as they were informed of the unexpected and bad news of the invasion of an army of foreigners on the island – a fact that would radically change the historical course of their homeland personal privacy. The world that the artist loved so much and painted over and over again at his birth place, bound with his land and his traditions, would no longer be the same.
Diamantis painted this work which was first exhibited at the Leventeous Art Gallery in 1975, and used the idea to create a composition of the same subject in larger dimensions. “The World of Cyprus” also mentions the archive of his works – which he held with meticulousness – next to a 1977 painting in which the central figures of the work are depicted. Between 1976-1978 he created a variety of designs, trying to render the feelings of the people who experienced the effects of the tragic events of 1974. However, his plan to create a larger version of the composition “When the People of Cyprus First-Heard the Bad News” never became a reality, perhaps because of the great difficulty and the advanced age of the painter.” [2]
“Though choosing to nurture his painting with nothing else but local material, his art never became neither ethnographic nor descriptive”. (E. S. Nikita)
Adamantios Diamantis, The World of Cyprus, 1967-1972
[1] Nikita, E. (2000). Adamantios Diamantis. 2nd ed. Nicosia, Cyprus: Cultural Foundation of the Banks of Cyprus.
[2] Worldofcyprus.info. (2015). Ο Κόσμος της Κύπρου. [online] Available at: http://worldofcyprus.info/sinexia.php [Accessed 25 Feb. 2018] .
Michalis Theodosiou 