Portrait of Michael Avg. Averoff, c. 1890-1895
The early works of Εconomou bear a strong mark of his apprenticeship with Nikiphoros Lytras, at the School of Fine Arts in Athens. Within the framework of academic realism, he depicted scenes from everyday life, in which the genre painting element predominated, in harmonious compositions and in balanced warm colours. However, he soon turned towards landscape painting, introducing into his art a freer style and a brighter colour range, which put him within the 'open air' movement which was predominant in Greece in the early twentieth century. The many views from the environs of Athens which he produced are not only examples of this free painting, but sometimes also living testimonies of topographical depiction at the time when they were recorded.
In the work Portrait of Michael A. Averoff, Michael Averoff (1840 - 1899), son of Avyerinos Averoff and husband of Amalia Landerer, is shown. A figure who was very active in politics and social issues in the life of Athens in the late nineteenth century, Michael Averoff is shown as imposing and decisive. Ikonomou did not content himself only with the establishment of the person depicted through the pose, but interprets the personality of the subject, in an effort to avoid idealisation, a leading characteristic in the portraiture of that period.
