Iakovos Rizos

Iakovos Rizos or Iacovos Rizos (Greek: Ιάκωβος Ρίζος Greek pronunciation: [iˈa.ko.vos ˈɾi.zos]), also known as Jacques Rizo,^[1] (c. 1849 – 1926) was a Greek painter who worked primarily in Paris.

Athenian Evening or On the Terrace, 1897

Biography

Rizos was born in Athens; he was the grandson of Iakovos Rizos Neroulos and his brother was a civil engineer.^[2] He went to Paris as a young man, studied with Alexandre Cabanel at the École des Beaux Arts,^[2][3] and spent his career there. He died there in 1926.^[4]

Rizos was a friend of Renoir and associated with the Impressionists, and much admired Degas' work after he first moved to Paris, but his own style was academic.^[3][4] Many of his paintings portray elegantly dressed women; he less often painted landscapes, in an Impressionist-influenced style.^[3] He exhibited a number of times at the Paris salons, beginning with a portrait of his sister, Mrs. Paparrigopoulos, which he re-worked for the 1878 Paris exposition.^[2] In 1875 his portrait of "Miss R." in a black silk dress with violet sleeves was noted by one critic as one of the finest portraits in the show.^[5] In 1877 his Indolence, a nude, was praised by one critic except for the execution of the head,^[6] and by another praised for the colouration but faulted for the drawing, particularly of the hands and feet.^[7]

Rizos' Athenian Evening or On the Terrace of 1897 won a silver medal at the 1900 Paris exposition and was praised at the 1899 art exhibition in Athens.^[3] It depicts an officer talking to two women on a terrace at sunset, with the Acropolis in the background, in contrast to the more common depictions of Greece in 19th-century painting that focus on rural life.^[8] It is a noted example of the juxtaposition of sophisticated urban life with the country's past grandeur, which was a theme of Greek artists in the late 19th and 20th centuries.^[9][10] It and a number of his other paintings are in the Coutlides Collection at the National Gallery of Greece;^[3] there are also several in private collections in both Athens and Paris.^[4]

At the 1897 salon, Albert-Gustave Belleroche exhibited a portrait of Rizo.^[11][12]

Gallery

• Paintings by Iakovos Rizos
• 
  Lady in the Garden with her Dog (1885–1890)
• 
  The Artist's Sister Reading (1885–1890)
• 
  Female Nude, c. (1849–1926)