Tip of the day – National Gallery: A must visit in Athens

• January 4, 2022

National Gallery, the impressive building in Ilisia area with the even more impressive art collection has now two current exhibitions which you will have the chance to visit them until September 2025. And from now on, you could plan a late afternoon visit every Wednesday, as on this day it will close at 20.00.

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Music that heals

A guided tour at the Museum’s Permanent Collection will precede the concert.
Monday, January 26, 2026
16.30 – Guided tour at the Museum
18.00 – Concert by the Athens String Quartet

The Athens State Orchestra’s “Musical Walks” chamber music concert series visits the National Gallery once again, this time with the Athens String Quartet.
The Quartet will focus on two of the most important composers of all time: Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Schubert. It will present two works from their mature creative period, which were first performed in the mid-1820s and are characterized by rare beauty and emotional richness.

Ticket information
The entrance to the concert is free. First come, first served.
Participation to the guide tour requires a reservation by email and the purchase of a 5€ ticket at the box office of the National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum
Book a seat for the tour events@nationalgallery.gr

Concert Program
FRANZ SCHUMPERT (1797 – 1828)
String Quartet No. 13 in A minor, D. 804 “Rosamund’s”
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (1770 – 1827)
String Quartet No. 15 in A minor, Op. 132
Athens String Quartet:
Apollon Grammatikopoulos (violin), Panagiotis Tziotis (violin), Angela Giannaki (viola), Isidoros Sideris (cello)

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Changing Grounds – Stories Beyond the Record: The National Gallery Archive

UNTIL 30.09.2026

NATIONAL GALLERY – CENTRAL BUILDING

The programme of Space in Between continues with “Changing Grounds – Stories Beyond the Record: The National Gallery Archive”, an archival exhibition by Natasa Biza, curated by Elpiniki Meintani.

The exhibition presents a series of new works by the artist, drawing on material from the National Gallery’s archive and bringing to light lesser-known or unseen aspects of its history and collections. Through selected archival episodes, Biza composes narratives that illuminate details and stories often overlooked or marginalised.

The exhibition seeks to activate the archive not only as a source of documentation, but also as a tool for dialogue between past and present, through contemporary artistic and curatorial practices.

Check here more details and  plan  your visit!

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Paper Icons in the National Gallery

UNTIL 28.02.2026

NATIONAL GALLERY – CENTRAL BUILDING

As part of its broader strategy to activate the full scope of its collections and its inclusive exhibition policy – addressing diverse audiences with varied interests and research perspectives in art history – the National Gallery and Alexandros Soutsos Museum presents a selection of religious copperplate engravings alongside original copper printing plates. This exhibition offers the public a concise overview of the early phases of Greek printmaking with religious subject matter.

Paper icons – thanks to their affordable price, wide availability, acceptance by the Church and monastic communities, and their recognition by the faithful as devotional objects on par with hand-painted portable icons on wood panel – came to hold a prominent place in Orthodox religious art of the period. They played a vital role in the renewal of religious imagery, in the dissemination of iconographic subjects, and in the personal appropriation of sacred figures and symbols.

Following the invention of printing in mid-15th-century Germany, paper icons flourished across Europe – initially in the form of brief printed leaflets featuring saints and prayers, intended for pilgrims and believers. New printing techniques – first woodcut, and later copperplate engraving – enabled the production of multiple copies. These prints circulated widely via the period’s most effective distribution channels: markets and trade fairs. This facilitated the accelerated exchange of artistic models and ideas, and the dissemination of major works of the Italian Renaissance throughout Europe and the Balkans. Through prints, artists encountered the work and ideas of their peers and adopted them as models, thereby enriching their own practice with compositional devices, perspectives, and narrative strategies from other creators.

Check here more details and plan your visit!

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Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos ✨The Allure of the Bizarre – A Survey of Greek Art

The National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum presents the exhibitions “Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos” curated by Katerina Tavantzi and “The Allure of the Bizarre” curated by Syrago Tsiara. Join us at the opening of the 2 exhibitions on Wednesday, January 22, at 19:30! Main Building of the National Gallery.
Exhibition duration: January 2025 – April 2026

Francisco Goya, Los Caprichos
Eighty prints, including etchings on paper and aquatints from 1797–98, will be showcased in a significant exhibition, accompanied by photographs of the preparatory drawings. This is Goya’s first print series and the only one published during his lifetime. The series, in the National Gallery Collection, was printed in 1803 and acquired in 1962 during Marinos Kalligas’s tenure as director.

The Allure of the Bizarre – A Survey of Greek Art
Inspired by Goya’s prints in the National Gallery and aligned with our commitment to reinterpreting historical collections through the Space in Between programme, we present, parallel to the exhibition of the 80 prints in Goya’s Los Caprichos series, the survey “The Allure of the Bizarre”, featuring works by ten Greek artists who, through their unique viewpoints, embrace and depict the bizarre, the hybrid, and the grotesque.
Featured artists: Angelos Antonopoulos, Celia Daskopoulou, Yannis Gaitis, Marianna Ignataki, Christophoros Katsadiotis, Dionysis Kavalieratos, Tassos Mantzavinos, Malvina Panagiotidi, Angelos Papadimitriou, Filippos Tsitsopoulos

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A Farm at the National Glyptotheque

Exhibition Opening: Wednesday, October 15, at 18:30
In the outdoor space of the National Glyptotheque at the Army Park, Goudi.

In the Farm the works that are on view are only those whose size and material allow their exhibition in an outdoor space. Works by Bella Raftopoulou, Antonis Karachalios, Yannis Antoniadis, Nikolas Dogoulis, but especially Frosso Efthymiadi Menegaki, create a fantastic, artistic environment, integrated into the natural landscape of the park, with familiar and less well-known figures, in characteristic poses. At the same time, however, they reveal the relationship, the emotions and the unique perspective of each artist towards the animals or birds they wanted to depict: the tenderness for their own pet or for the pet of a neighbor, but also for the unknown animals, which they used as models.

Exhibition curation: Tonia Giannoudaki, curator of the collection of Modern Greek and European Sculpture of the National Gallery

Check here more details  and plan your visit!

#ΠινακοθήκηΜας #OurNationalGallery #ΕθνικήΓλυπτοθήκη #ΕΠΜΑΣ #NationalGlyptotheque

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Don’t forget to also visit the shop of National Gallery  shop to get some ideas for special gifts and souvenirs for your family  and friends.

Check also the permanent exhibition and plan your visit here and do not forget after the visit to have a walk in Ilisia area and Mavili Square to relax and eat in one of the beautiful cafes and restaurants that located close to the Gallery.

There is also the Nafplion Annex, which  inaugurated on May 8, 2004,  and housed in a wonderful neoclassical building, ceded to the National Gallery by the Municipality of Nafplion through the mediation of the Chairman of the Board of the National Gallery, Honorary Chairman of the Hellenic Supreme Court of Audit and distinguished citizen of Nafplion, Mr. Apostolos Botsos. The building was renovated and equipped at the expense of the Alexander S. Onassis Public Benefit Foundation. If you plan a day trip to Nafplio from Athens, don’t forget to visit it too.

Entrance: 50 Vasileos Konstantinou str.
Metro Station: Evangelismos
Info: 2144086201

#ΠινακοθήκηΜας #OurNationalGallery #ΕΠΜΑΣ #NationalGalleryAthens #ΕθνικήΓλυπτοθήκη #NationalGlyptotheque #OpenGuidedTour