The Teriad Library and Museum of Modern Art
Stratis Eleftheriades Teriad (1897-1983), when he was 18, he left from Lesvos and went to Paris, where he studied law, without stopping thinking of painting. His interest was mainly focused on its thorough study, so he became an art critic. He cooperated with established publishers for the publication of periodicals, books and newspapers about visual arts. In 1972, in Vareia, next to the Theophilos Museum, he erected at his own expense, a building which houses his publications. It is in a marvelous olive grove where his family home also stands. The contents of the museum consist of 29 rare books by the art critic with hundreds of pictures done by the great artists of our time, Picasso, Matisse, Giacometti, Chagall, Le Corbusier, Miro and others. The books are in special cases and pages are framed on the walls so that one can see and enjoy the inspiration and the modern designs of the great painters who made history in Paris. In the museum-library are also some issues of Teriad???s magazines ???Minotaure?? and ???Verve?? and the forty paintings by Theophilos that Teriad presented at the Louvre which made the folk artist known world-wide. Another area of the museum contains paintings by the great Yannis Tsarouhis. The Museum building has an area of around 1,000 square meters and its architectural morphology is distinguished by its simplicity, as Teriad’s wish that the building would harmoniously bond to its surroundings. The Teriad museum-library is unique in the world for it constitutes both a large school of art and a research centre for artists and those involved with the arts while still being of interest to ordinary visitors. The museum holds exhibitions of many famous painters.