The painter, cartoonist, illustrator, and set designer Minos Argyrakis was born in Smyrna in 1920 and passed away in 1998.
He settled in Athens with his family as refugees in 1922. He studied at Athens College on a scholarship from Stefanos Deltas (1930–1937) and for one year at the Supreme School of Economics and Business in Athens (1938). In 1942, he enlisted in EPON (United Panhellenic Organization of Youth) and developed resistance activity, roaming the mountains of Evrytania with the partisans. For four months in 1944, he was held prisoner at the El Daba concentration camp. After two failed entrance examinations at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1943 and 1946), he took painting lessons from his close friend Yannis Tsarouchis. His social circle included Yiannis Moralis, Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika, Manos Hatzidakis, and Nikos Gatsos.
From 1943 onward, he worked as a cartoonist and illustrator for various newspapers and magazines in Greece and abroad (Eleftheria, Avgi, London Magazine, Combat, Punch, Who’s Who in Graphic Arts, Lettres Nouvelles, etc.). The style of his drawings draws on folk and naïve art, incorporating elements of satire and sarcasm. Concurrently, he designed sets and costumes for theater and television and illustrated books (e.g., N. Kazantzakis’ Saint Francis, G. Theotokas’ It is Getting Late, 1971, among others). He also authored and illustrated his own publications (the album Street of Dreams 1957—which inspired the namesake 1962 musical production by M. Hatzidakis—The State Was Sailing in Black and White 1962, Around the World 1965, and Traveling in Greece 1984).
In 1964, along with his partner Amy Mims, Y. Tsarouchis, and E. Spatharis, he founded the pioneering theater “Amy’s Ark” in Plaka. The theater was shut down by the military dictatorship, prompting him to leave for Europe. He returned to Greece in 1974, and in 1975, he illustrated an English travel guide for Greece (Fodor’s Greece 1975). In 1981, he collaborated with Hatzidakis once again, creating sets and costumes for the theatrical production Pornography.
He was a founding member of the Lambrakis Democratic Youth (1963), as well as a member of the Chamber of Fine Arts of Greece and the artistic groups “Art Group A” (1960) and “Armos” (1949–1953).
He presented his work in numerous solo exhibitions (Athens, Paris, London, Copenhagen) and group exhibitions in Greece and abroad (e.g., Panhellenic Exhibitions 1948, 1952; Biennale Internazionale dell’Umorismo nell’Arte – Tolentino 1963; International Youth Festival – Moscow 1957).
His artworks are held in the Benaki Museum / Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghika Gallery, the Museum of Modern Greek Art of the Municipality of Rhodes, the Municipal Art Gallery of Heraklion, and in private collections.