# Spyros Vassiliou artist context and auction value notes

Canonical page: https://appraisily.com/artist/spyros-vassiliou/
Profile generated: 2026-05-11T17:57:49.486Z
Quality: high confidence, strong sources

## Artist identity

- Birth date: 1902-04-27
- Death date: 1985-03-22
- Nationality: Greek
- Common media: oil painting, printmaking, illustration, stage design, graphic design

## About Spyros Vassiliou

Spyros Vassiliou (1902–1985) was a Greek painter, printmaker, illustrator, and stage designer born in Galaxidi, Greece. Active from the early 1920s through the mid-1980s, he became widely recognized in the 1930s after receiving the Benaki Prize from the Athens Academy. He later received a Guggenheim Prize for Greece, and his works were exhibited in galleries across Europe, the United States, and Canada. Vassiliou worked across painting, printmaking, illustration, and theatrical set design, reflecting the breadth of Greek modernist visual culture in the twentieth century. His art frequently drew on Greek landscapes, urban scenes, and everyday life, rendered in a distinctive lyrical figurative style. Collectors encounter Vassiliou's work primarily through Greek and international auction markets, where his paintings, prints, and works on paper appear regularly.

## Common works and media

Common works by Spyros Vassiliou include oil paintings on canvas and panel, watercolors, drawings, prints such as lithographs and etchings, book illustrations, and stage and set designs. His subjects frequently feature Greek landscapes, seascapes, village and urban scenes, still lifes, and figurative compositions. Vassiliou also produced posters and graphic design work. Collectors may encounter both original works and reproduced illustrations from his extensive career in book and periodical publishing.

## Market and appraisal context

Vassiliou's work appears regularly in Greek and international auction markets, with over 400 recorded lots. His oil paintings—particularly landscapes, urban scenes, and figurative compositions—tend to attract the strongest collector interest. Prints, illustrations, and works on paper also surface frequently. Key valuation factors include medium and scale, subject matter, provenance, condition, and whether the work can be firmly attributed and dated. Works with documented exhibition history or catalogue references may carry additional weight. Collectors should note that attribution and dating can be challenging, as Vassiliou remained active for over six decades and revisited similar subjects throughout his career.

## Appraisily data basis

Appraisily artist pages combine identity research from museum, library authority, and scholarly sources with auction records, auction-house context, sale dates, realized prices, and comparable lots when those records are available. For Spyros Vassiliou, identity data is drawn from the Getty Union List of Artist Names, VIAF, the Library of Congress Name Authority File, and the RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History.

## Sources

- Wikidata: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7581811
- Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyros_Vassiliou
- Getty Vocabulary Program: https://vocab.getty.edu/page/ulan/500123631
- VIAF: https://viaf.org/viaf/41953473/
- Library of Congress: https://id.loc.gov/authorities/names/nr98011342
- RKD Netherlands Institute for Art History: https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/438834