Untitled (Roses)

For the last thirty years of his life, Drossos P. Skyllas created one of the smallest but most compelling bodies of 20th Century Self-Taught art. Only thirty-five paintings are extant from the mid-1940's to 1973 and the artist labored over each one, sometimes for years. He painted classical subject matter, including nudes, religious figures, landscapes and as in the present lot, still-lifes, rendered with a staggering amount of detail. Untitled (Roses) displays Skyllas' masterful painterly technique at its best, transforming a mundane still-life into an otherworldly object.