# Nikolaos Chatzikyriakos-Ghikas artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/nikolaos-chatzikyriakos-ghikas/
Profile generated: 2026-05-18T18:07:00.000Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1906-02-26
- Death date: 1994-09-03
- Nationality: Greek
- Movements: Modern Greek art, Geometric abstraction
- Common media: oil painting, sculpture, engraving, gouache, watercolor, drawing, stage design, printmaking

## About Nikolaos Chatzikyriakos-Ghikas

Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas (1906–1994) was a leading Greek painter, sculptor, engraver, and set designer widely regarded as one of the most important Greek modernists of the twentieth century. Born in Athens on February 26, 1906, he studied privately with Constantin Parthenis before continuing his training in Paris, where he lived and worked between 1924 and 1934 and formed a lasting friendship with Le Corbusier. His work draws on ancient Greek art, cubist structure, and the Mediterranean landscape, producing a distinctive style of geometric abstraction infused with light and color. Ghikas served as a professor at the Athens School of Fine Arts, was a founding member of the Greek Association of Art Critics (AICA-Hellas), and exhibited internationally at institutions including the Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Venice Biennale. He died on September 3, 1994, leaving a substantial body of paintings, sculptures, stage designs, and illustrated books.

## Common works and media

Ghikas worked across a broad range of media. Oil on canvas landscapes and interior scenes are among his most recognized works, often depicting the Greek island of Hydra where he maintained a residence. He also produced gouaches, watercolors, and ink drawings with geometric compositions. As a sculptor, he created small-scale pieces in bronze and mixed media. His practice extended to stage and set design for theater and opera productions, engraving and printmaking, and book illustration. Collectors may encounter exhibition posters and prints alongside original paintings, works on paper, and sculpture.

## Market and appraisal context

Ghikas's work appears regularly in international auction sales, with over 330 recorded lots across major and regional houses. His oil paintings—particularly landscapes and interior scenes rendered in his characteristic geometric style—tend to command the strongest interest at auction. Gouaches, watercolors, drawings, and prints by the artist also circulate in the secondary market, generally at lower price points. Provenance, exhibition history, condition, and the period of the work within Ghikas's long career can all significantly affect valuation. Works with documented provenance linking to the artist's estate or major gallery exhibitions are typically valued higher. Collectors should note that name variants appear across catalogues, and attribution verification is recommended.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine identity research from authority files and museum records with auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. For Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas, this page draws on data from the Getty Union List of Artist Names, VIAF, the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie (RKD), Tate, the Museum of Modern Art, the Library of Congress, and Wikidata, alongside Invaluable auction records.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q3341835
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikos_Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500119279
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/88768814/
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/n50082255
- The Museum of Modern Art: https://www.moma.org/artists/7050
- Tate: https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/nicolas-ghika-1158
- RKD (Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie): https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/31353