Patrick Comerford
I was recalling earlier this week how I recently came across a collection of photographs of modern sculptures in the streets and parks of Thessaloniki and realised that I had written little about these sculptures over the years.
Rather than leave the photographs and memories in forgotten files on my laptop or in the cloud, I decided to start an occasional series of blog postings on some of those modern sculptures I have rediscovered in Thessaloniki. Over the next few weeks, I am inviting you to join me in a minor odyssey of recovery and discovery as my mind wanders through Thessaloniki, looking at these sculptures again.
The marble statue of Eleftherios Venizelos on Plateia Dikastirion (Πλατεία Δικαστηρίου, Dikastirion Square or Courthouse Square) is close to site of the Roman Forum and close to the junction of Via Egnatia and Aristotelous Avenue.
The sculpture is 3.73 metres high and is the work of the sculptor, painter and poet Giannis Pappas (1913-2005). He was born in Constantinople, and following the Asia Minor Catastrophe in 1922, his family moved first to Corfu and then to Athens. He studied at the Institut Français in Athens, and at the École Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the Paris Law School.
He returned to Greece during World War II, and was posted with the Greek navy to Alexandria, where he remained until 1951, returning to Athens in 1952. His early students included Giorgos Georgiadis, whose cast bronze sculpture of Aristotle sits on Aristotelous Square and whose interview with To Vima partly inspired this series. Pappas was Director of the Athens School of Fine Arts from 1959 to 1969.
Pappas completed the marble statue of Eleftherios Venizelos in Thessaloniki In 1977. His other works that I am familiar with include the statue of Pantelis Prevelakis at the Town Hall in Rethymnon. Facing it is a statue of Venizelos by Giannis Kanakakis (1903-1978), a notable sculptor from Rethymnon.
Pappas knew Eleftherios Venizelos personally and his statue in Thessaloniki shows a lively Venizelos in motion, capturing his strong political personality. The face is very realistic, he places his left leg in front, resting on the marble column. His upraised right hand makes him look like he is giving a political speech or beckoning the people, while he is grasping a solid column behind him, representing his steadying influence on Greek politics and affairs.
Eleftherios Venizelos (1864-1936) was born near Chania in Crete and was the Prime Minister of Crete before the island was incorporated into the modern Greek state and he was Prime Minister of Greece on eight occasions, from 1910 to 1920 and from 1928 to 1933.
Venizelos had such a profound influence on political life in Greece that he is seen as ‘the maker of modern Greece’ and was widely known as the ‘Ethnarch’. Through his political moves, Greece doubled its area and population with the incorporation of Thessaloniki into Greece in 1912 and with the liberation of Macedonia, Epirus, and most of the Aegean islands.
Against the king’s wishes, Venizelos brought Greece into World War I on the side of the Allies, causing the ‘National Schism’, with the pro-Venizelos northern provisional government based in Thessaloniki and the pro-royal government in Athens. The Mehmet Kapantzi Villa on Leoforos Vasilissis Olgas, one of the most beautiful buildings in Thessaloniki, was the home of Venizelos from 1917 as he headed a revolutionary government based in Thessaloniki.
Following the Allied victory, Venizelos secured new territorial concessions in Western Anatolia and Thrace. After the ‘Asia Minor Disaster’, he signed the Treaty of Lausanne, which provided for the exchange of Greek and Turkish populations and initially, he had the warm support of refugees. He was forced into political exile.
When Venizelos died in Paris in 1936, his body was brought back to Crete and he was buried at the Akrotiri peninsula on the outskirts of Chania.
The Centre Union (Ένωσις Κέντρου, Enosis Kendrou), the party founded by Georgios Papandreou in 1961, became the ideological heir to the Liberal Party. After the colonels took power, its legacy was eclipsed by PASOK, the Panhellenic Socialist Movement. I was reminded of the enormous contribution to Greek policial life by generations of the Papandreou family last week with the death of Margaret Chant Papandreou in Athens on 8 September 2026.
The statue of Eleftherios Venizelos on Plateia Dikastirion continues to be a regular gathering place before political demonstrations in Thessaloniki.
In this series:
1, Introduction (21 September 2026)
2, Aristotle by Giorgos Georgiadis, Aristotelous Square (22 September 2026)
3, Alexander the Great by Evangelos Moustakas, Alexander’s Garden (23 September 2026)
4, Eleftherios Venizelos by Giannis Pappas, Plateia Dikastirion (24 September 2026)
5, The Jewish Monument by Konstantinos Lentaris, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
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