The Society of Cretan Historical Studies is happy to announce the opening of the exhibition Natalia Mela: 25 Scultpures, to be held on Wednesday, February 14th, 2018, at 18:00 at the Historical Museum of Crete.
25 selected works from the oeuvre of the important artist Natalia Mela, will be exhibited in the Byzantine and Venetian Period Permanent Collections of the Museum. Animals and birds, warriors and tools, works characterized by their unconventional use of material, (metal and iron-pieces or paper cut-outs), will find their place amidst the stone and marble sculptures of the past eras next to Byzantine animal-chase reliefs, or the emblematic lions of the Most Serene Republic of Venice.
At the opening, the painter Alekos Levidis will present an overview of the life and work of Natalia Mela at the Yiannis Pertselakis amphitheatre.
The exhibition’s leaflet hosts an insightful analysis written by Alekos Levidis and excerpts from Dimitris Pikionis' texts on Natalia Mela’s oeuvre from the exhibition of her work in the 1960s.
The HMC will offer workshops and activities for children planned specially for the specific exhibition by the Museum Educators.
The exhibition will be hosted in the Historical Museum of Crete until March 10, 2018.
Natalia Mela was born in Athens in 1923. Her father Michael Melas, an artillery officer, was the son of Pavlos Melas and Natalia Dragoumi, originating from Epirus and Macedonia. Her mother was Alexandra Pesmantzoglou, daughter of the banker Ioannis Pesmantzoglou. In 1942 she passed the entrance exams to the Athens School of Fine Arts, and there she followed the courses of Demetriades and later of Tombros, attending also Apartis’s workshop. At that same period she opened her own workshop at Mourouzi Street, nr. 5, where she still does her work. In 1946 she was awarded first prize for Nude Figures and graduated from the School. In 1951 she married the architect Aris Konstandinidis, with whom she had two children. Her work has been shown many times in individual and group exhibitions, in Greece and abroad. In the spring of 2008 the Benaki Museum held a major retrospective of her work. In March 2011, the Academy of Athens honored her with the Medal for Excellence in Art.