The exhibition presents essential works of printmaking and printed art from the Pietro Bellasi and Katerina Papageorgiou Bellasi Collection, which was donated to the University of Thessaly by the Bellasi couple in February 2022, as well as selected works from the private collection of Mrs Katerina Papageorgiou Bellasi. This unique collection for Greece includes two hundred works by internationally renowned Greek and foreign artists of significant range, artistic quality, and aesthetics. The exhibition focuses mainly on highlighting the collectors' choices, trying to delineate for the viewers the 'biography' of a collection that began to take shape during the 1970s in Italy. The exhibition sheds light on the path of this unique, internationally renowned collection, whose initial aim was to be offered to the citizens of Volos, the donor’s place of origin. The exhibition includes works by internationally recognized great artists who have already entered the history of modernist art worldwide, such as Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí, Lucio Fontana, Max Ernst, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Klinger, André Masson, Marcel Duchamp, Lucio Fontana, Jean Tinguely, Marino Marini, Arman Fernandez, César (Baldaccini), Victor Vasarely, Hans Hartung, Alberto Burri, Max Bill, etc. as well as works by renowned Greek artists such as Yannis Spyropoulos, Alekos Kontopoulos, Yannis Moralis, Nikos Hadjikyriakos Gikas, Yannis Tsarouchi, etc. The exhibition presents the range of engraving and printmaking techniques as well as the expressive specificity of each applied technique, such as woodcut, engraving, etching, aquatint, lithography, silkscreen, collage, etc., with emphasis on engraving methods and techniques as used by contemporary artists. Works by international representatives of printmaking, such as Felix Vallotton, Volker Kuhn, Yvette Balif, Angela Colombo, Diana Pietro, Gianfranco Ferroni, Dante Maffei, Sandro Martini, Giulia Napoleone, Ugo Nespolo, Walter Valentini, Vladimir Velickovic, Karel Demel, Kunito Nagaoka, Endre Szász, Dorothea Wight, etc. are presented. as well as Greek artists who have been identified with the history of printmaking in Greece, such as: Dimitris Galanis, Alexandros Korogiannakis, Angelos Theodoropoulos, Petros (Papavassiliou), Vasso Katraki, Tassos (Alevisos), Voula Massoura. The University of Thessaly organized the exhibition at the Giorgio de Chirico Art Centre in Volos in collaboration with the Committee for the Management of the Pietro Bellasi and Katerina Papageorgiou Bellasi Collection (4/12/2024-31/1/2025).
