Chryssa Vardea-Mavromichali
Greek, 1933 - 2013
Chryssa, born Chryssa Mavromichali in 1933 comes from the Deep Mani. She began painting while she was an adolescent, and her family sent her to Paris to study at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere in 1953-54. When she was barely twenty-one she sailed to New York. Chryssa is best known for her Luminist sculpture of colored neon tubing. After arriving in New York, she was inspired by Times Square, its lights, and the newspaper for which the Square is named. Chryssa has had individual and collective exhibition shows at the Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim, The Whitney, Harvard University; Institute of Contemporary Art at the University of Pennsylvania; Carnegie Institute, and many others.
