Wassili Lepanto: Landscapes of the soul at the National Gallery’s Sparta Annex

The National Gallery’s Koumantareios Gallery in Sparta presents Wassili Lepanto: Landscapes of the Soul, a year-long exhibition dedicated to one of the most distinctive artistic voices to explore the relationship between landscape, history and human consciousness. Opening on 29 July 2026, the exhibition brings together ten significant paintings inspired by historic sites across Greece.

Rather than depicting landscapes as geographical settings, Wassili Lepanto approached them as inner territories. For the artist, nature and history were inseparable, and each place became a vehicle for memory, reflection and spiritual elevation. His paintings invite viewers to experience familiar Greek landscapes not through documentary observation, but through an intensely personal and philosophical gaze.

The exhibition features works portraying sites including Mystras, Monemvasia, Akronafplia, Argos, Kythera, Mount Athos and Olympos on Karpathos. Most of the paintings come from donations made to the National Gallery – Alexandros Soutsos Museum and the Benaki Museum following the artist’s death, offering a rare opportunity to encounter this remarkable body of work together.

Born as Dr Vassilis Loukopoulos in 1940, Lepanto initially pursued an academic career, studying German literature, history and philosophy in Germany before completing a doctorate at the University of Mannheim. In the late 1970s he made the radical decision to leave academia and devote himself entirely to painting. In 1983 he published his manifesto Art for Humanity or an Ecological Art, encapsulating a lifelong belief that art should foster harmony between people and the natural world. Alongside his artistic practice, he remained an active environmental advocate and served as a municipal councillor in Heidelberg.

The exhibition is curated by Monika Diamanti, Head of the National Gallery’s Sparta Annex, and will remain on view until 25 July 2027, inviting visitors to rediscover Greece’s historic landscapes through the poetic vision of an artist who believed every landscape ultimately reflects the human soul.