RIP Manolis Glezos: Tireless Legend

Today we lost someone who fought against fascism and oppression his whole life.

A Greek national hero, Manolis Glezos first inspired the Resistance by tearing the Nazi flag down from the Acropolis with his bare hands.

We met him here in Brussels where he was still working to fight against, you guessed it, fascism and oppression.

Glezos passed away today.

He lived an incredible life, fierce and filled with humour too. Today we are especially quiet and sad locked in our homes, observing social distancing as per the global crisis that feels funereal most days anyway.

I’m so grateful to have met a hero. To have had him over for tea. To have witnessed the energy that it took to be a force of humanity for as many years as he gave and gave and gave.

He inspired me to make two portraits of him and inspires me to keep giving too.

I made this sketch when Manolis Glezos visited us. I hope you can see his compassion and magnetism in the connection he shared. This was long before the oil portrait he gave me permission to paint which I shared and wrote about here:

https://tamarlevi.com/2015/09/10/manolis-glezos-portrait-in-the-method-of-rubens/.

I hope when this global health crisis is over we can travel again to Apiranthos, his village on the highest mountains on the island of Naxos where the hardiest fighters are buried.