1967-1984: The Antrophakia
1967
On 21 April, the military Junta plunges Greece into darkness. In a silent protest against the dictatorship, artists, writers and intellectuals decide to abstain from any cultural activity.
Gaïtis visits Brazil and spends seven months there. He travels across the country and paints ceaselessly preparing his exhibitions. He participates in the São Paulo Biennial with Christos Caras and Costas Tsoclis.
He exhibits at the Rath Museum in Geneva and at the galleries Zu Predigern in Zürich, T in New York and Merlin in Athens.
1968
Artists acknowledge that the most effective way to resist the dictatorship is to give their own artistic testimony.
Gaïtis creates compositions that condemn the regime.
The anthropakia (little humans) of Gaïtis become a defining and representative element of his work and style.
He exhibits at the galleries Schneider in Rome and Il Traghetto in Venice.
1969
He creates his first constructions in the studio he shares with Annie Costopoulou, with whom he will partner during the last ten years of his life.
He exhibits his constructions and his canvases at the Nea Gallery in Athens and at the galleries Il Giorno in Milan and Il Salotto in Como.
1970
Through continuous research, the anthropakia culminate in their ultimate formal stylisation.
1971
He encounters the filmmaker Serge Bergon, who directs the film Gaïtis le Baladin in which Gaïtis wanders in the streets of Paris in search of the anthropaki who escaped from one of his paintings.
1972
He exhibits at the Desmos gallery in Athens the series Flying Machines and the installations dedicated to the most famous Greek football teams Olympiakos and Panathinaikos.
He designs and supervises the construction of his own residence on Ios island, in an architectural dialogue with Jean-Marie Drot’s house.
1973
Seduced by his work, the French writer and poet Pierre Seghers publishes a year later in the Modern Greek Painters series of Tram Editions, an essay on the constructions of Gaïtis.
He presents, at the Desmos gallery in Athens, his major construction The Funeral of Painting, which displays a coffin and a procession of anthropakia. The title makes reference to the tragic events of November 1973 at the Polytechnic School of Athens.
1974
The American Circle Gallery organises a travelling exhibition in Chicago, San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
After the fall of the Greek dictatorship, Gaïtis leaves Paris and settles permanently in Greece.
1975
The number of exhibitions he participates in is constantly growing. This year alone he holds six solo exhibitions and participates in nine group exhibitions.
1976
He exhibits at the Circle Gallery in New York and at the Schneider Gallery in Rome.
1977
At the gallery Trito Mati he presents, for the first time since the 1950s, watercolours and drawings from 1947 to 1954.
He participates with the series Human Landscapes in the FIAC in Paris along with the sculptor Gabriella Simossi and the ceramicist Eleni Vernardaki.
1978
Comprehensive solo exhibitions are organised at the modern art museums of Belgrade and Skopje in Yugoslavia where his figures invade the canvases.
He participates for the second year in the annual festival organised in Athens by the left-wing newspaper Avgi.
1980
On the occasion of the presentation of the series Antiquities at the Polyplano gallery in Athens, Nikos Papadakis publishes a monograph entitled Yannis Gaïtis, A Revolutionary Creator. This is the first monograph tracing his trajectory.
1981
The “little humans” come alive during performances organised in Patras and Thessaloniki. They wander in the streets, and they interact with the passers-by.
Stathis Chrissicopoulos organises for the Carnival in Patras a procession of a hundred people dressed in striped costumes and bowler hats parading through the crowds.
This happening takes place also in Thessaloniki during the exhibition at the Cochlias gallery.
1982
The French Institute in Athens welcomes Yannis Gaïtis’s anthropakia.
At Europalia 82, in which Greece is the country of honour Gaïtis exhibits at the Palais des Congrès.
Inspired by Gaïtis’s drawings, the fashion designer Yannis Tseklenis names his spring/summer 1982 collection “Tseklenis from Gaïtis”. The collection is shown in Athens, in the Minion department store and in department stores in Dallas and New York, in the United States.
At the Expo Arte 82 in Bari Italy, Gaïtis meets the art critic Giuliano Serafini.
1983
The Aixoni Gallery in Glyfada is inaugurated with the exhibition The Objects of Yannis Gaïtis. The exhibition includes textile banners and furniture chairs, tables, sofas, clothes stands etc, – all inspired by the anthropakia.
He exhibits in Bologna at the Asinelli Gallery and in Florence at the Aglaïa Gallery.
He participates in the exhibition “Chili, lorsque l’espoir s’exprime” at the Georges Pompidou Centre.
A retrospective is dedicated to his work at the Minion department store in Athens titled Gaïtis at Minion.
In November, he travels to New York for health reasons accompanied by his daughter Loretta and Annie Costopoulou. To exorcise his illness, he creates a series of self-portraits facing a mirror, drawing with a marker pen. He paints with unique movement, rapidity and precision.
Before his departure, Gabriella Simossi visits him in Athens, then she returns to Paris where she is making votive collages to ward off evil from Yannis.
A retrospective exhibition of his work is being prepared at the National Gallery in Athens. From New York where he is, he designs the monumental constructions for this upcoming exhibition.
1984
The retrospective exhibition is taking place at the National Gallery in Athens.
Before the inauguration on 16 July which he will be unable to attend, Gaïtis privately visits the exhibition set up with love and respect by his architect daughter Loretta with the help of Gavrilos Michalis.
Athens, which started recognising his talent in the early 1970s, now discovers and confirms the full breadth and richness of his work and of his creative path. Yannis Gaïtis can now retire in peace.
He dies on Sunday 22 July 1984.
The then Minister of Culture, Melina Merkouri, organises an honorary funeral.
In November, Greek television broadcasts a film by Giorgos Sgourakis, honouring Gaïtis’s work in the Monogram series.
