Nikolaos Dragoumis

Life

He was born on 29 August 1874 in Athens, where he spent his childhood. In September 1891 he went to Paris for the first time to study at Lycee Janson-de-Sailly, preparing for the French Naval School and pursuing a military career. His guardian during that time was the Greek writer Dimitrios Vikelas. However, in June 1893 he failed the Naval School exams and in October of the same year he enrolled at the Sorbonne Law School. In the summer of 1896 he was in Munich to study law at the University of Ludwig-Maximilans, while at the same time he became friend with the Greek painter Dimitrios Geraniotis, who studied at the Munich Academy. In November 1897, Nikos Dragoumis obtained his degree from the University of Sorbonne and returned to Greece to pursue a career in the Foreign Ministry. However, he broke up with his family and his father, Stephanos, sent him to Volos to work as an assistant manager of the Thessaly Railway Company. But Nikos Dragoumis secretly left Volos in May 1899 and returned to Paris this time to study painting.

Nikos Dragoumis, Marika Dragoumis, Sister of the Painter, 1909, ink and gouache on paper, private collection

He was enrolled in the Julian Free Academy in October 1900 and studied there until December 1902 in the workshop of William Bouguereau (1825-1905). At the same time, in the years 1900, 1901, 1902 he was enrolled in the entrance examinations of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts but seems to have failed in all three of his attempts. During these years he befriended Dimitris Galanis, who portrayed Dragoumis in one of his first works in Paris, the painting by Trovadouros (1900, today at the National Gallery and the Museum of Alexandros Soutsos). In June 1903 Dragoumis went to the village of Graveson for the first time in Provence, where he spent a long period of his life painting. In August 1904 he visited Greece and his family in Kifissia. It is noteworthy that Nikos was the last member of the Dragoumis family to see Pavlos Melas alive: he stayed with him on the night of August 29 and accompanied him the next morning to the train station, from where Melas left for his last trip to Macedonia. Dragoumis returned to Paris in June 1905, although he remained in Graveson. In 1908 he began his relationship with the Russian painter Lydia Borzek. He was again found in Greece from October 1909 until July 1910 before returning to Paris. In October 1911, while in Graveson, his mental illness developed. On 2 November he left Marseille for Piraeus. Accompanied by his brother Ion, a few days later, he entered a private clinic for the mentally ill in Naples, Italy. Dragoumis did not stay in Naples for a long time. Shortly afterwards the family moved him to Corfu and in the summer of 1913 he and Borzek visited Andros. In August 1913 he settled in Kifissia, but in May of the following year, accompanied by Ion Dragoumis, he traveled to the village of Sent, near Geneva, and entered a private psychiatric clinic. He stayed there for 18 years until 1932, when his family brought him back to Greece due to financial difficulties. He entered the Dromokaitio Institute in Chaidari in August, where he died a few months later, on 6 January 1933, possibly from a stroke.