Costa-Gavras pays tribute to the painter Alekos Fassianos

(Athens) Franco-Greek director Costa-Gavras paid tribute on Monday to his “luminous friend” Alekos Fassianos, who died in Athens on Sunday, an “exemplary, philosophical painter” Greek painter with whom he liked to taste sea urchins on a wild beach in Greece .

In an email to AFP, the committed filmmaker, who will celebrate his 90th birthday in February, salutes the “unique and so personal work” of the deceased painter, often presented as the “Greek Picasso” or the Matisse of modern times.

The two friends shared a love of France, a love of Greece and a love of the Cycladic island of Kea, among other things.

Fassianos, who died on Sunday at the age of 86, will remain “present in all the minds and hearts of all the Greeks who loved him and whom he loved”, writes the filmmaker whose work has been nourished by the dramas politics of his childhood in Greece.

“For those who knew and loved him, he will remain the warm, luminous friend who liked to invite us to taste sea urchins on a wild beach. He caught them and prepared them with the delicacy of a Greek fisherman”, adds the director of Z, The confession or more recently Adults in the Room on the Greek debt.

“I liked his humor, his own, he was resolutely caustic against stupidity, the vulgarity of ideas and facts”, observes Costa-Gavras about Fassianos, known for his characters from Greek mythology and folklore.

“Alekos, we will see each other again soon”, concludes the director in a final farewell to his friend.

Contemporary of Costa-Gavras, but also of the Greek composer Mikis Theodorakis, who died in September 2021, Fassianos died on Sunday at his home in his Athens district of Papagou, where his funeral will be held on Tuesday in the presence of his wife and two children. .

Fassianos, who had shared his life between Greece and France, is known for his characters from Greek mythology and folklore, with which he adorned his canvases and lithographs exhibited throughout the world.