Vaso Katraki was one of the most important printmakers of 20th-century Greek art. The exhibition “The Struggle of Black and White” at A49 presents her work through the characteristic duality of light and shadow, memory and history, that ran through her entire creative trajectory.
From her early woodcuts during the Nazi Occupation and the iconic albums of the Resistance, to her monumental engravings on sandstone — where her figures, inspired by Cycladic and Archaic sculpture as well as by Modigliani and Giacometti, become slender, elongated black silhouettes against white backgrounds — the exhibition maps an oeuvre that won international recognition and was awarded in Alexandria, Lugano, Venice, and East Berlin.
Katraki’s engagement with political history — from the Resistance to her exile on Gyaros during the Junta — gives her compositions allegorical depth. Her work remains timelessly relevant.
