ABSTRACT
From 1917 onward, Greek artists began to take an interest in Soviet art, initially called proletarian art, then socialist realism from 1932. The social messages of the October Revolution and the images of workers’ battles, social revolutions, demonstrations, strikes, and more generally the life of workers and farmers provided inspiration for many artists and students of the Athens School of Fine Arts throughout the 1920s and 1930s. The advocates of proletarian and communist art at that time primarily used engraving, which was considered to be the best propaganda medium for socialist ideas and also the most accessible medium—they thus picked up on an insight found in the USSR and elsewhere in communist Europe. Not until a few years into the 1930s did proletarian artists stop portraying just what was happening in the USSR and turn to the social and political reality in Greece—an evolution that is evident in the reproductions found in their review entitled Neoi Protoporoi (The new avant-gardists), where they published articles and reproductions, in particular engravings. The proletarian artists did not manage to exhibit their work until 1932 onward, but the installation of the Metaxas dictatorship in 1936 seriously limited their opportunities, and these artists resorted to genre and landscape paintings.
