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Biography Gregory Kondos

Gregory Kondos (b. 1923) paints the perceived colors of his environment, whether that might be the forests of Northern California, the mountainous Yosemite National Park, or the shores of his ancestral Greece.

Gregory Kondos, Maynard Dixon's Home, Mount Carmel, Utah, Oil on Linen, 18" x 24"

Born in Lynn, Massachusetts to Greek immigrant parents, Gregory Kondos moved to California with his family at a young age. Encouraged by his parents to live his particular version of the American Dream, Gregory Kondos attended art school in Sacramento and Los Angeles. After taking several art-related jobs and appointments, Kondos began teaching at his alma mater, Sacramento City College, in 1956, and continued to work there until his retirement in 1982 (whereupon the school renamed their exhibition space the Gregory Kondos Gallery).

Gregory Kondos, Canyon de Chelly, Oil on Canvas, 18" x 24"

Over the course of his life, Gregory Kondos has won several awards, including those at Winter Invitationals of the California Palace of the Legion of Honor, a Dillard Collection prize, and an appointment as Full Academician at the National Academy of Design in 1995. Gregory Kondos has also had an extensive exhibition history, including several one-person shows at galleries in the Sacramento and San Francisco area and group exhibitions, such as his 1993 invitation to show at the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York. Gregory Kondos has also served as an artist-in-residence at Yosemite National Park (1990) and has spent many summer months there. Gregory Kondos continues to live in Sacramento with his wife, Moni Van Camp. Influences are Maynard Dixon, William de Kooning, Paul Cezanne, and Paul Gauguin.

Gregory Kondos, Canyon de Chelly Arizona , Oil on Canvas, 30" x 36"

Education

1941 - Sacramento Junior College, CA

1946 - Art Center College of Design, Los Angeles, CA
California State Univerisity, Sacramento, CA - Masters

Awards and Exhibitions
2007 - Golden Bear Artist of the Year Award, CA Arts Council, State of California

2007 - Arizona: A Millennium of Arizona Art, Mark Sublette Medicine Man Gallery, Tucson, AZ

2006 - Prize Award, National Academy of Design in New York

1998 - Featured in a PBS Special Documentary, A Passion for the Land. Commissioned for a mural in Sacramento International Airport, CA.

1995 - Elected National Academy of Design, New York City.

1994 - Distinguished Service Award, California State University or Sacramento, CA.

1990 - Artist in residence, Yosemite National Park.

1973 - Work is included in A Sense of Place: the Artist

1969 - Has solo exhibition at the Carolina Palace of the Legion of Honors, San Francisco.

1966 - Work is included in The West- 80 Contemporaries organized by the University of Arizona, Tucson. Wins a Dillard Collection purchase prize in the exhibition Art on Paper, selected by Thomas B. Hess for the Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Work is included in the - National Small Paintings Exhibition, juried by Norman Geske and Herbert Katzman for the University of Omaha.

1965 - Work is included in the 84th San Francisco Art Institute Annual Exhibition, juried by John I.A. Bauer, Gerald Nordland, and Alan Soloman.

1963 - Wins one of ten awards in the Fourth Winter Invitational, California Palace of the Legion of Honors, San Francisco, for painting Sea Breeze. Serves as a summer guest instructor, University of California, Berkeley, Extension Division. Has solo exhibition at the Pioneer Museum and Haggin Art Galleries, Stockton, California.

1962 - Wins one of nine awards in the Third Winter Invitational, California Palace of the Legion of Honors, San Francisco, for the painting Greece. Appointed chairman of the art department, Sacramento City College. Has first solo exhibition at the E.B. Crocket Art Gallery, Sacramento.

1958 - Cofounds Artist Cooperative Gallery with Wayne Thiebaud, Russel Solomon, Pat Dullanty, Robert Else, Fred Schmid, and others. Has solo exhibition at Artist Cooperative Gallery. Teacher in Art Department, Sacramento Junior College, CA. Taught for 24 years and retired in 1982. Founded the campus art gallery, named in his honor.

Collections and Museums
-Hirschorn Museum, Washington, D.C.
-Phoenix Art Museum, AZ
-Oakland Museum, CA
-Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.
-Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
-Sacramento Museum, CA
-Santa Barbara Museum, CA
-Monterey Penninsula Museum, CA
-Fresno Museum, CA
-St. Mary's Museum, Moraga, CA
-Yosemite Museum
-Sacramento City College Museum, CA
-Reives Arches Museum, France

Publications
1997 - Leading the West: One Hundred Contemporary Painters and Sculptors by Donald J. Hagerty
1999 - Southwest Art Magazine, February, The Solitude of Space

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Gregory Kondos, Tesuque, NM, Oil on Canvas, 16" x 20"