Tetsis Home & Studio

n 2007, the Athens Academy member, painter Panagiotis Tetsis (Hydra island, 1925 – Athens, 2016) donated his grandparents’ home on Hydra Island to the Historical and Ethnological Society of Greece, in order for it to become after his passing a museum housing his works and studio.

Tetsis grew up on the island, and this house is linked to his first attempts at painting and art in general. From the end of the 1980’s until recently he used it as his base on the island, having transformed the upper floor sitting room into a studio. The house is a typical hydriot home of the 19th- early 20th c. and was also used for the family’s professional activities: one aisle of the ground floor was devoted to a traditional candle manufactory and grocery shop-tavern. The donor’s wish was to have the house preserved as a unit, encompassing both the family home, and these workshop settings, including the wine cellar in the basement, all of which are preserved intact. His artist’s studio was to be enriched with a set of his own donated paintings.

Today, after thoroughly documenting the house and its contents, the artist’s works and the objects (furniture, utensils, drawings, family photographs, personal items, archives, studio materials, workshop objects, bottles and boxes, scales, tools, candlemaking tools etc), they are all put on display in a manner highlighting the particular value of the ensemble.

Source: www.nhmuseum.gr