Gaston Petridis (b. 1938) American, Large Oil on Canvas Street Scene. Multiple figures walk along a tree-lined street in a crowded city. Signed bottom right. 

Overall Size: 28 3/4 x 48 1/4 in. 

Sight Size: 4 x 43 1/2 in. 

Frame Thickness: 1 1/2 in. 

#4579  

Gaston Petridis was born in Athens, Greece in 1938. His youth during World War II was relatively free from trauma, thankfully, but he and his many siblings were left to their own devices, spearing fish for their own dinner and collecting sea urchins, shell, and jasmine to sell in the markets to support their parents. In the aftermath of the War part of the family immigrated to Columbus, Ohio, where Gaston had more difficulty learning English than his brothers. Becoming withdrawn and shy, he retreated into nature and wound up exploring the surrounding countryside, where he happened to meet James Roy Hopkins at his farm in nearby Mechanicsburg. Hopkins, who had been head of Ohio State University’s Fine Arts Department until 1948, introduced Gaston to art for the first time. Inspired, Gaston began to emulate Hopkins and the Impressionists, and took private lessons with him until the early 1950s when Hopkins’ health began to deteriorate. Gaston spent the next forty years exploring and developing his own Post-Impressionist style, primarily painting with a palette brush and knife. His large-scale street scenes and landscapes were shown in galleries throughout the Midwest, and in the late 1990s he and his wife moved to Saint Petersburg, Florida for health reasons, where he continues to make art and display it along the Gulf Coast.