Giorgos Gounaropoulos (Greek:Γιώργος Γουναρόπουλος, 22 March 1890 – 17 August 1977) was a Greek artist.

Giorgos Gounaropoulos was born inSozopol,Bulgaria, on 22 March 1890, the sixth child of a Greek family.In the early 1900s the Bulgarian government put pressure on Greek-origin families in the country to adopt the Bulgarian national identity.The family decided to move toGreece, and in 1904 settled inAthens.^[1] Because of his family financial situation, as a teenager Gounaropoulos earned money by creatingsignages.^[2] From 1907 to 1912 he studied at theAthens School of Fine Arts underSpyros Vikatos,Dimitrios Geraniotis,Georgios Roilos andGeorgios Jakobides.^[3] He was awarded an Averoff scholarship, and afterWorld War II (1914–18) he went to Paris in 1919 and attended theAcadémie Julian and theAcadémie de la Grande Chaumière.While in Paris he participated inSalons, opened his own studio and held his first solo exhibition at the Vavin-Raspail Gallery in 1926.^[2][3]

Gounaropoulos staged his first exhibition in Athens in 1924 and a controversial solo exhibition at the Stratigopoulos gallery in 1929.He returned to Athens permanently in 1931.He continued to exhibit in solo and group shows, including international shows inSão Paulo in 1959 andAlexandria in 1963.He was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship in 1958.He died in 1977 in Athens.^[3]

Gounaropoulos began painting in academic style, then was influenced byimpressionism andPaul Cézanne, and eventually developed a very personal surrealistic style.His paintings have a dreamy and lyrical quality inspired by ancient Greek art. He illustrated collections of poetry, made wall paintings for the Municipal Council of Athens (1937–39) and painted the iconography for the chapel of the Public Hospital of Volos (1951).^[4]His home was donated by his family to become the home of the Gounaropoulos Museum in 1979.^[4]Examples of his work are also held by theMunicipal Art Gallery of Ioannina.^[5]

• 1890 births
• 1977 deaths
• 20th-century Greek artists
• Bulgarian emigrants to Greece
• Bulgarian people of Greek descent
• People from Sozopol
• Artists from Athens

• Articles containing Greek-language text
• Articles with hCards
• CS1 Greek-language sources (el)