From October 2, 2019, avid art lovers will have ‘their own’ museum of contemporary art in Athens! Located next to Agios Spyridon Square in the Pagrati district of Athens, the new modern art museum of the Basil & Elise Goulandris Foundation has found a home in a fully restored building of high aesthetic, extending over 11 floors. 180 unique and priceless works of contemporary art, created between 1880 and 1980 have a new home on Eratosthenous Street. The museum will host temporary exhibitions of Greek and foreign artists, as well as numerous educational programs.
With a total surface area of 7,250 sq.m., the new museum will showcase the legendary private collection of Basil and Elise Goulandris, two of the most renowned art collectors of the 20th century; Basil and Elise Goulandris accumulated these rare artworks based on their personal aesthetic and passion for art. Their unparalleled devotion helped them create an enviable collection, but their vision was to give a wider audience the opportunity to come into contact and become familiar with the art they so loved.
Since the 1950s, the two passionate yet meticulous collectors added masterpieces by prominent artists of modern and contemporary European avant-garde artists such as Cézanne, Van Gogh, Picasso, Toulouse-Lautrec, Braque, Miró, Kandinsky, Klee, Léger, Bacon, Giacometti, Pollock, and others, as well as works by distinguished Greek modern painters including Parthenis, Bouzianis, Vasileiou, Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, Tsarouchis, Moralis, Tetsis and others. A hall dedicated to the memorable visionaries will host a display of French furniture, works of art from the 18th century, as well as Chinese artifacts.
This Athens museum heralds the beginning of a new chapter for the Goulandris Foundation, and in parallel to the Museum on Andros, it aims to promote this new hub as a vehicle for the development of innovative cultural activities. One thing is certain, the vision of Basil and Elise Goulandris’ Athenian cultural center to be placed among the global artistic landscape is a reality!