The painter Alekos Kontopoulos was born in Lamia in 1904 and passed away in Athens in 1975.
After receiving his first painting lessons from the hagiographer G. Sarafianos in Lamia, he moved to Athens, where in 1923 he was admitted as an exceptional talent directly into the third year of the Athens School of Fine Arts under professors G. Iakovidis, P. Mathiopoulos, and N. Lytras. During the interwar period, he traveled to Paris, where he attended classes at the École des Beaux-Arts.
He returned to Athens and, from 1941 to 1969, worked as a draftsman at the National Archaeological Museum.
After the war, he turned toward abstraction and became a founding member, in 1949, of the art group “Oi Akraioi” (The Extremists).
He frequently published texts on art.
His work was presented in several solo exhibitions (Lamia 1923; Zygos, Athens 1957; Cahiers d’Art, Paris 1963; retrospectives: National Gallery-Alexandros Soutsos Museum, Athens 1976; To Trito Mati, Athens 1978, 1980; Gallery Wigmore Fine Arts, London 1997, etc.), as well as in group exhibitions [Free Artists, Athens 1935, 1936, 1940; Panhellenic Exhibitions, Athens 1948, 1960, 1963, 1965; São Paulo Biennale 1953, 1955 (silver medal), 1957; Alexandria Biennale 1959; Venice Biennale 1960, etc.].