BIOGRAPHY

Painter Athanasios Stathakopoulos was born in 1942 in Katerini, Greece. His parents came from Eastern Thraki.

He attended painting at school with Professor Xaralampos Tsomidis and then studied and worked for eight years (1959-1966) with the painter Anastasios Gkogkos; this offered him a lot of experience in painting portraits.

Based on his natural gift for painting, he decides to become a painter as his main and only profession. Since 1967 his atelier is situated in his birthplace, Katerini. He is among the few, if not the only one, living painters in Katerini that deals professionally with painting more than 50 years.

Motivated by his love and interest in Fine Arts, he visited Paris, Amsterdam, Munich and other countries’ galleries. At the same time, in collaboration with Professor Koutsaftikis, of the University of Patra, they created the wall paintings at the Museum of Natural Historyin Lamia.

Between 1976 and 1980, he taught painting at N.E.L.E. Pieria and organized notable exhibitions with his students.

In 1978, he was selected to a commission to evaluate and promote the best student paintings among Pieria’s schools, in order to participate in a student exhibition in Thessaloniki, organized by the Ministry of Northern Greece.

In 1980, in cooperation with painter Evaggelos Xaritopoulos, they established Pieria’s Fine Art Association, where he was president from 1984 to 1991.

In 1984, he participated in the documentary film on the ERT channel called “Rural Artists”, together with archeologist Professor at Aristotle University Dimitrios Pantermalis, painter Anastasios Gkogkos, literature teacher Georgios Raptis, writer Nikolaos Xristoforidis and poet Aggelos Aggelidis. He was also profiled on the documentary on the YENED channel “One city, one story”.

Since 1991, he has been teaching to children and people of all ages interested in painting. He also teaches Free Drawing to candidates of the School of Fine Arts and Engineering/Architecture.

His artistic presence is remarkable to this day with a series of individual and group exhibitions in Athens, Thessaloniki, Larisa, Katerini, Drama and many other cities.

Stathakopoulos’ paintings are exhibited in public places and institutions, as well as in private collections in Greece and abroad.

He is married to Dora Sidiropoulou and they have a daughter.