As Greece celebrates its 200th anniversary of independence, the country’s National Gallery-Alexandros Soutzos Museum in Athens held a ceremony to mark the completion of an almost decade-long expansion and renovation. The €59m project has more than doubled the museum’s footprint to 20,000 sq. m, creating space for exhibitions and collection storage, an auditorium, a shop, a café and a restaurant with panoramic views of the Acropolis.
The gallery reception was part of an official event celebrating the 200th anniversary of the start of the Greek War of Independence against Ottoman rule on 25 March 1821. The Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, welcomed foreign dignitaries such as the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall, the Russian prime minister and the president of Cyprus to tour the new displays.
The museum organizers have not yet declared the date of the opening of the museum as Greece struggles with another surge in cases of Covid-19, despite more than four months of lockdown.
The Greek minister of culture and sports, Lina Mendoni, says the National Gallery’s reopening will put it “on the map of the big international museums”. The refurbished gallery “reflects Greece in 2021, while at the same time integrating its rich historical and cultural heritage”, she says.
The National Gallery was founded in 1900 and hold a collection of more than 20,000 works by Greek artists and international figures, including El Greco and Picasso. Around 1,000 works will feature in the rehang, starting with a sculpture by Rodin outside the entrance and Panayiotis Tetsis’s monumental painting Street Market (triptych) (1979-82) in the atrium.
The museum will showcase a special display dedicated to the War of Independence, titled 1821 in Painting: Greece Demands its Historical Art Gallery on its opening. Among the works are Scene from the Greek War of Independence (1856) by Eugène Delacroix and The Reception of Lord Byron at Missolonghi (1861) by Theodoros Vryzakis.