Konstantinos Volanakis

Konstantinos Volanakis is remembered as the father of Greek seascape painting, though he learned his trade far from the sea he loved, in the studios of Munich. Born on Crete in 1837, he joined the celebrated group of Greek students at the Munich Academy under Karl von Piloty, alongside Nikolaos Gyzis and Nikiphoros Lytras, the painters who would define Greek art of their century.

The sea made his reputation. In 1866 he won an Austrian competition for a picture of the Battle of Lissa, a recent naval clash in the Adriatic, and in 1877 he painted the Battle of Trafalgar so convincingly that the British Admiralty bought it.

He returned to Greece in 1883 and taught for 20 years at the Athens School of Fine Arts, painting harbours, fishing caiques and the naval battles of the Greek War of Independence. He died in Piraeus, the port of Athens, in 1907.