Michael Lekakis
Born in New York in 1907 of Greek parents, Michael Lekakis maintains strong ties with his heritage. One of seven brothers and sisters, he was nurtured in the city's Greek-American community and discplined by the realities of a life common to many first generation children. His thirst for knowledge and pursuit of enlightenment, however, was most uncommon.
His interests have encompassed the entire classical culture, and Lekakos has spent lifetime informing himself. Necessities were turned into opportunities, and each experience added dimensions to both his life and art. His early years, occupied in floral arrangement and decoration at his family's wholesale flower business, provided his first aesthetic concepts of design, and solidified his desire to devote himself to art. The war years, studying and eventually teaching camouflage. afforded the circumstances to fuerther conceptualize the relationship of form to space. Interest in dance, both participating and helping in the organization of a group dedicated to Greek ethnic dances, gave him insight into the movement of forms and the projection of objects in space.
Lekakis has spent years in attending lectures in philosophy and anthropology, Byzantine music and Chinese poetry, seeking out those whom he respected and from whom he might learn. In much the same way that the ancient Greeks acquired knowledge, Lekakis has contantly moved from Agora to Lyceum, and many of his teachers became his close friends.
An intensely private man, and preferring seclusion as a requisite for his art, Lekakis has also traveled extensively and has incorporated his electric experiences into his work. He is his art. Although his sculptural technique and theory are unique, he forswears any statement of his own, declaring that he is merely a tool through which nature is alloed its inherent meaning. He has never "manufactured" art, and does not regard his work in any way didactic. Approaching it with humility, he maintains that the concepts exist, and potential will be realized through creativity. At times his sculuptural forms and the organic geometry of his drawings evoke an Aristotelian predisposition, yet the natural serenity of his creations suggest an evolutionary process closer to the Platonic Doctrine of Universal Forms.
In choosing to dedicate himself to his work, Lekakis has also chosen to eschew notoriety and commercialization. His work, however, is in many major museums as well as in private collections throughout the world.
the following was submitted as a bulletin by artist Henry Niese:
Lekakis and I lived on W. 47th St. NYC 10001. His studio was at 51, mine was at 47. His residence was on West 29th St. near 7th Ave. I greatly admired his monumental sculptures, and he liked my paintings. Although he was Greek,spoke and wrote fluent Greek, he was born on 28th St, went to school on 28th St, had a house on 29th St & a studio on 28th St.
His poetry was published in Athens. He taught Ezra Pound about Greek poetry. He and I collaborated on a 'rewrite' of a poem by William Carlos Williams about one of my paintings. WCW's poem was published in Pictures from Breughel, which won him the Pulitzer posthumously. Our rewrite was never published.
