Nikos Egonopoulos

Born on October 21, 1907, in Athens, his father Panagiotis was from Constantinople and worked as a merchant. From 1923 (at the age of 12) until 1927, he attended a boarding high school in Paris, where he was taught classical French poetry. In 1924, André Breton's manifesto also influenced him. He returned to Greece in 1927 to fulfill his military service. Initially, he worked as a cover designer for magazines, and in 1932, he enrolled at the Athens School of Fine Arts, studying under Konstantinos Parthenis. Simultaneously, he attended the art workshop of Fotis Kontoglou alongside Yiannis Tsarouchis. During this period, he began publishing his first poetry collections, initially influenced by Solomos and Baudelaire. From then on, his poetry faced ridicule. Many magazines and newspapers, both Greek and foreign, parodied his poems with derogatory comments. In 1939, he organized his first painting exhibition at the home of Nikos Kalamaris. His personal ordeal began in 1940 when he was conscripted and sent directly to the front lines of the Albanian front. The Metaxas regime kept him on the front lines continuously until the end of the war. He was captured by the Germans on April 13, 1941, after a deadly battle of the Central Macedonia Army and was illegally sent to a "prisoner labor camp," from which he escaped and returned to Athens on foot. He never stopped writing poems by any means possible. In liberated Greece, he initiated numerous artistic endeavors, founding associations in which he actively participated, without ever ceasing to paint or write. In 1967, he became a professor of freehand drawing at the National Technical University of Athens. From 1967 until his retirement in August 1973, he significantly influenced student life both inside and outside the university. He passed away on October 31, 1985, in Athens. His works include: - "Do Not Speak to the Driver," 1938 - "The Keyboards of Silence," 1939 - "Seven Poems," 1944 - "Bolivar," 1944 - "The Return of the Birds," 1946 - "Eleusis," 1948 - "The Atlantic" (reprint from the magazine "Anglo-Hellenic Review"), 1954 - "In Flourishing Greek Speech," 1957 (First State Poetry Prize, 1958) - "Poems," Vol. A, Ikaros, 1966 (a collected edition of the collections "Do Not Speak to the Driver" and "The Keyboards of Silence") - "Greek Houses," 1972 - "Poems," Vol. B, Ikaros, 1977 (a collected edition of the collections "Bolivar," "The Return of the Birds," "Eleusis," "The Atlantic," "In Flourishing Greek Speech") - "In the Valley of the Roses," 1978 (First State Poetry Prize, 1979) - "Karagiozis, a Greek Shadow Theater," Ypsilon, 1980 Posthumously published books include: - "Prose Texts" (collected edition), Ikaros, 1987 - "... and I Love You Madly: Letters to Lena 1959-1967" (ed. Dimitris Daskalopoulos), Ikaros, 1993 - "The Angels in Paradise Spoke Greek... (interviews, comments, and opinions, ed. Giorgos Kentrotis)," Ypsilon, 1999 - "The Measure, the Man: Five Poems and Ten Paintings," Ypsilon, 2005 - "Beautiful as a Greek: Poems/The Beauty of a Greek: Poems" (bilingual edition, anthologized, translated & ed. David Connolly), Ypsilon, 2007 He also translated many works of foreign poets. A deeply spiritual man, Nikos Engonopoulos was not only a painter and poet but also a true thinker. Passionate about surrealism, he left us with a timeless body of work characterized by an atmosphere uniquely his own. Engonopoulos's work faced negative reactions that bordered on mockery and defamation. His sole supporter was fellow surrealist Andreas Embirikos. In painting, his mentors were Konstantinos Parthenis and Fotis Kontoglou, individuals whom Engonopoulos always spoke of with admiration. He himself stated, "I am a painter by profession and consider poetry to be an entirely personal matter."