Sculptor Chryssa Passes

She was born on the last day of December 1933 into the famous Mavromichali family of Mani. Her family, although not really prosperous (her father died while she was a toddler) was fond of the arts and letters, and her dabbling in painting from her teens was encouraged.

She initially studied to be a social worker in Athens, but at the urging of family friends and experts her family sent her to Paris where she studied for a year at the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere associating with among others Andre Breton, Edgard Varese, and Max Ernst.

In 1954, Chryssa, then 21, arrived in the USA and went to study at the California School of Fine Arts. In 1955, she went to New York and became a US citizen, establishing a studio, there.

For Chryssa, New York, where she lived for 47 years, was the land of opportunity and inspiration. She was 28 when she was asked to participate in an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum. As she admitted in an-interview, the prospect filled her with apprehension.

Her works were inspired by life in big urban centers. Her first large opus, Cycladic Islands, where characterized by art critic Barbara Rose as the herald of minimalism.

Her first personal exhibition was in 1961 at Betty Parson's gallery the same year as her exhibition at Guggenheim.
Many of her works were inspired by Times Square, which she sees as resembling Byzantine brilliance she uses aluminum, stainless steel, plexiglass, and neon lights. Her work The Gates of Times Square (1966, Albright Knox Art Gallery), called by some one of the most important modern American works of art, a form comprising two large Letters “A”, she uses all of these materials. Letters and neon lights are characteristic features of her works. Her 1967 opus Clytemnestra, reminiscent of an S, decorates the entrance to the Athens Conservatory Hall.
She has exhibited works at MoMA, Minneapolis' Walker Art Center (1968), Whitney (1972), Montreal Modern Art Museum, the Paris Modern Art Museum, the National Gallery of Art at Athens, The Boston and London Contemporary Art Institutes, and various art exhibitions like the biennales of Sao Paolo and Venice.

Her work Mott Street (1983), inspired by Manhattan's Chinatown, adorns the Evangelismos metro station in Athens. She has also bequeathed works to the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki, and the new Contemporary Art Museum of Athens. In 1992 she returned to Athens and set up a workshop/studio in the Neos Kosmos district, but again returned to the US.