Nikiforos Lytras

Nikiforos Lytras (Greek: Νικηφόρος Λύτρας; 1832, Pyrgos, Tinos – June 13, 1904, Athens) was a nineteenth-century Greek painter. He was born in Tinos, and trained in Athens at the School of Arts. In 1860 he won a scholarship to Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Munich. After completing these studies, he became a professor at the School of Arts in 1866, a position he held for the rest of his life. He remained faithful to the precepts and principles of the Munich School, while paying greatest attention both to ethographic themes and portraiture. His most famous portrait was of the royal couple, Otto and Amalia, and his most well-known landscape a depiction of the region of Lavrio.

Nikiforos Lytras was a child of a popular marble sculptor. In 1850 to the age of eighteen years he went to Athens to study in the School of Arts. He studied painting with Ludwig Thiersch and Raffaelo Ceccoli. With his graduation in 1856 he started teaching there the course of elementary writing.

In 1836 with a Greek government’s scholarship he went to Munich to study in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts. His teacher there was Karl von Piloty. In 1862 after King Otto was exiled the scholarship was no longer available to Lytra so the expenses undertook the ambassador of Greece in Vienna Simon Sinas. In the summer of 1865 before his return to Greece he meets Nikolaos Gyzis in Munich. There they visited and studied a lot of art masterpieces.

With his return in Athens Lytras became professor in the Athens School of Fine Arts in the department of Painting and he taught there for 38 years.Spyridon Vikatos was one of his pupils.

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