(b Thérmon, Aitolia, Jan 1908). Greek sculptor. He studied drawing with the Greek painter Constantin Maleas (1879–1928) and sculpture with Thanassis Apartis, a pupil of Emile-Antoine Bourdelle. He was a student at the University of Athens Law School for three years and also took lessons in drama and music. He was one of the founder-members of the Armos (1949–52) and Alpha (1950) groups and of the Communication and Education in Art League. After an early period of figurative sculpture with busts and compositions in which the structural organization of masses predominated, he turned to abstraction in about 1957. As a pioneer of non-figurative sculpture in Greece he constructed his monumental works from layers of sheet metal stuck together, as in Cyclopean (1966) and Tiryns (1965; both artist’s col.), and Acrocorinth (bronze, 1965; Athens, N.G.), claiming that he composed them according to the laws of natural and cosmic creation. His works seek to emulate the dynamic balance of natural phenomena, formed over the centuries, but Loukopoulous’s creative process condenses time in re-creating the conditions of the natural process, such as selection and rejection. Closed stereometric masses of various shapes and sizes are articulated rhythmically around an explosively condensed mass or around nuclei (e.g. Three Forms, bronze, 1975).

• Loukopoulos, Clearchos
  • Greece, §IV: Sculpture