Zverev

In his last TV interview, George Costakis, when asked who he would single out among all contemporary artists known to him, answered unequivocally: Anatoly Zverev. He considered him an unconditional genius, purposefully acquired his works, wrote several wonderful essays about him.

Costakis met Zverev in 1954 and immediately began to support the young artist. Thanks to Costakis, Zverev's works ended up in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York. George guided Zverev in his abstract experiments, which resembled Russian avant-garde. Finally, it was Costakis who defined Zverev’s style as “lyrical expressionism”.

Georgy Dionisovich was for Zverev at the same time a friend, a curator, and a patron. Costakis’ passion for Zverev was also manifested in his conviction that in the 1970s - that is, after the collector's departure abroad - the artist's work began to decline. Today it is obvious that Anatoly Zverev kept the spark of genius until the end of his days. This does not negate the fact that George Costakis has amassed one of the artist's best collections.

After the collector's death, in 2013, his daughter Aliki Kostaki donated more than 600 works by Zverev from her father's collection to the AZ Museum. So the superior Zverev works returned from the Greek emigration to their homeland.