Nikolaos Gyzis

Nikolaos Gyzis left the young Greek kingdom for Munich as a student and never really came back. He became a central figure of the so-called Munich School of Greek painters and eventually a professor at the Bavarian academy, teaching there for decades.

His early work draws on Greek life and history, sharply observed genre scenes and children, painted with a warm brown academic finish. Later he drifted toward allegory and religious vision, and his glowing, unfinished 'Behold the Bridegroom Cometh' became his most famous image.

He is treated in Greece as one of the fathers of modern Greek painting, though he spent almost his whole career on German soil. He died in Munich in 1901.