Flowers, c.1960
After studying architecture at the Athens Polytechnic (1931 - 1936), Thanasis Tsingos worked until the outbreak of the Second World War as an architect in Greece; he then, in 1948, settled permanently in Paris, where he worked with Le Corbusier. A mercurial artist and an eccentric character, he involved himself with the theatre as a set and costume designer, and, moreover, set up a theatre company with his wife, an important actress in roles in the modern repertoire. Finally, however, he was won over by painting. His works are characterised by a free brush-stroke in relief, gesturally positioned on the canvas, in a constant struggle between the representational and non-representational, but there is always an overflow of passion, an inner concern, an unusual dynamism of an explosive personality.
Flowers, a typical work by Tsingos, must have been painted around 1960 or a little earlier. It is a pure expression of his individual character - full of dynamism, tension, and spontaneity which found an outlet in this material-packed, exuberant, and - it could be said - violent painting. Natural forms - flowers, birds, the world of the sea - are reconstituted in his work with a freedom which distances it from the fidelity of representation, as the colours, with the relief technique, interpenetrate, thus touching upon the bounds of abstract expressionism, where the gesture is part of the work.