The Municipal Art Gallery in Chania has in the last two decades seen a number of major exhibitions drawn from the collections of wealthy individuals and institutions, which reflect its ambition to become a focus of both local and wider, national culture. The Gallery, situated at the top of Halidon Street in Chania, is in a 1910 town house whose renovation was completed in 2002. The interior, extending over three floors joined by a central staircase flanked by curved steel balustrades with steel rope bracings, is itself something of a work of art.
Currently showing at the Gallery is a selection of 99 works of art from the collection of the Bank of Greece, which provides a sample of the Bank’s major collection of some 3,000 art works, while at the same time tracing the development of Greek art in modern times, over the period 1870 to 2024. It follows the transition of Greek artists’ inspiration from the sometimes mythical, sometimes realistic treatments of landscape and people – most notably in the marine paintings of the late 19th century – through an experimentation with abstraction inspired by developments elsewhere in Europe, and finally returning to the modified realism of the present day.
Entitled “Journeys in Art: works from the collection of the Bank of Greece”, the exhibition was inaugurated by the Bank’s Director Giannis Stournaras on 24th May and runs until 2nd November of this year. It was curated by the art historian Charis Kanellopoulou, who is the technical adviser and official curator of the collection of the Bank of Greece. The show is organised into three “journeys” – units which unfold over the different floors of the Municipal Art Gallery, covering a period of approximately 150 years. The following descriptions of the three periods are taken from the exhibition catalogue and the explanatory panels which preface each section of the exhibition itself.
From the subject matters of the ancient world in the 19th century to the seas of the first half of the 20th century.
The first journey is dedicated to artworks from the Bank of Greece Collection dating back to the 19th century and the first half of the 20th. It was during the first part of this period, in the 19th century, that the essence and characteristics of Greek secular art were originally established, in the framework of the Munich School and the style of academic romanticism and realism.
From the artistic innovations of the early 20th century to the avant-garde of the 1960s and 1970s
In the second section of the exhibition, the journey starts with works by painters who imbued Greek painting with a new spirit during the first decades of the 20th century, and ends with creations by artists who expressed the avant-garde in Greek art, establishing their activity in the 1960s and 1970s.
From modern representation to contemporary abstraction
A return to representation, the predominant artistic dialect for depicting and exploring the human figure, even in the last quarter of the 20th century and up until the present day, signals the start of our journey into the third section. In the first part of this section, our steps lead us to human figure representations that emphasise different aspirations. A change of theme marks the remaining route, as city and nature landscapes are presented in their modern artistic versions.
The catalogue
The handsomely produced catalogue – a bargain at €20.00 – includes reproductions of every exhibit with a commentary in Greek and English, as well as introductions by Giannis Stournaras, the mayor of Chania Panagiotis Simandirakis, and the deputy mayor for Culture Giannis Giannakakis. There are also biographies of every artist.
Opening hours (summer timetable):
10:00-14:00 & 19:00-22:00
Entrance: €5.00
Concessions: €2.00 (students, unemployed, the disabled, families with three or more children).
Free entry: Young people up to 18 years, card holders of ICOM (International Council of Museums) and EETA (Graphic Arts Chamber of Greece).