ArtistGreek-Swedish
Jorgo Krallis
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Jorgo Krallis was born in 1937 on Plateia Aristotelous in the historic centre of Thessaloniki, during the German occupation of Greece. His father was a journalist and an agent for a German film company; his mother ran a toy shop in the Egnatia marketplace. That childhood environment, marked by performance, storytelling, and commercial imagery, left a visible trace in work that would combine wit, fantasy, and popular appeal over six decades.
He graduated from the Anatolia American College and went to Munich to study theatre, stage design, and cinematography at the Max Reinhardt Theatre. He also studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich, learning engraving alongside painting, then continued in Paris for a year before spending four years working in creative design in Amsterdam. In 1965 he exhibited at Gallery 55 in New York, where his maritime subjects, Greek island landscapes, flowers, and mythological themes found buyers. He moved to Sweden in 1966 and enrolled in the graphic arts department of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Stockholm, where he studied engraving until 1971.
Sweden became his permanent home and the context for his mature work. He is recognised there as a painter, sculptor, and engraver, working across all three with consistent productivity. His engravings combine lithography and copper-plate techniques, often finished with watercolour washes. His paintings are known for their lively, humorous character: people, animals, and invented figures in eventful situations, drawn from a visual imagination that remains rooted in his Mediterranean origins while speaking a language that connects easily to Swedish audiences.
His public commissions are substantial. He has received state grants and official recognition from Sweden's Arts Academy, which in 1976 awarded him a distinction alongside a state grant. At least six of his engraving designs were adapted as tapestries for interior decoration, including work for the New Tokyo General Hospital. His sculptures ornament interiors, parks, and public squares across Sweden. He won first prize at the Biennale of Miniature Engraving in Cadaques in 1968 and received an honourable mention at the International Triennale of Engraving in Grenchen, Switzerland. His work is represented in the collection of the National Museum in Stockholm and in the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
At Nordic auction, his prints appear through Auctionet and its member houses. Signed and numbered colour lithographs such as "Casa Nostra" and "Valoen" trade at accessible prices, with the graphic works representing the most visible strand of his auction presence. His etchings, both monochrome and colour, circulate steadily through Swedish auction houses.