Suprematism and Constructivism
Work from the 1910s and 1920s at a revolutionary moment.
Because the man who assembled it was **Greek**. **George Costakis** was born in Moscow to a Greek รฉmigrรฉ family and lived his life there, working at the Canadian embassy โ a position that gave him freedom of movement rare for a Soviet resident. When he saw in the 1940s that Russian avant-garde paintings were being discarded and destroyed as "degenerate art", he began buying them cheaply from artists' heirs. On leaving in 1977 he was allowed to take part of the collection out in return for leaving the rest to the state. **Greece** bought that part in 2000 โ so the art followed its collector's nationality.
Worth it if **modern art genuinely interests you** โ this is a collection of international standing rather than a regional museum, with nothing comparable outside Moscow and a handful of Western institutions. If your visit to Thessaloniki is short and centred on the Byzantine monuments, the upper town and the markets, **20โ30 minutes each way** may not repay it. โ And check before going that the **permanent collection is on display** โ the works rotate and exhibitions change, and you may find an entirely different temporary show.
Sign in to write your review of this place.
No reviews yet โ be the first.
This museum holds one of the most important collections of the **Russian avant-garde** in the world, and the story of how it reached Thessaloniki is as strange as it is significant. **George Costakis** (1913โ1990) was a Greek born in Moscow who worked as a driver and then a staff member at the Canadian embassy there. In the 1940s he began buying paintings of the **Russian avant-garde** โ Malevich, Rodchenko, Liubov Popova, Klyun and others โ at a time when the Soviet regime treated the work as degenerate and forbidden, and it was being consigned to storerooms or destroyed. He bought it cheaply from artists' heirs and saved thousands of works from being lost. When he left the Soviet Union in 1977 he was compelled to **leave most of the collection** to the Soviet state in return for permission to take part of it out. That part was bought by the **Greek state** in 2000 and placed here. So the collection holds **abstract, Constructivist and Suprematist** work from the 1910s and 1920s โ paintings, drawings and constructions from a revolutionary moment in the history of modern art. โ It is in the former **Lazariston Monastery** north-west of the centre, off the usual visitor route.
Work from the 1910s and 1920s at a revolutionary moment.
One man buying what the state was throwing away.
A cultural complex in a former monastery north of the city.
Moni Lazariston, Kolokotroni 21, Stavroupoli, 56430 Thessaloniki