The painter, engraver, and iconographer Polykleitos Regkos was born in Tragea (present-day Chalki), Naxos in 1903 and passed away in Thessaloniki in 1984.
Coming from an educated, wealthy, and religious family, he lived in Thessaloniki from 1913, with his father as his first art teacher, and later Leonidas Kovaios and Stathis Agapitos at the 2nd High School for Boys in Thessaloniki. He studied painting at the School of Fine Arts under professors G. Jakobides, S. Vicatos, D. Geraniotis, G. Roilos, and Nikolaos Lytras. He also studied painting at the Grande Chaumière and Colarossi Academies in Paris, as well as printmaking at the workshop of D. Galanis. He studied great painters in museums across France, England, Spain, Italy, Austria, and the USA.
He taught painting at the American College Anatolia in Thessaloniki (1935–1937) and at the Experimental School of Thessaloniki (1937–1949), organizing art exhibitions for students and alumni. Later, he taught at the School of Agriculture and Forestry of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (1950–1969).
He painted portable icons and churches in Thessaloniki, Siatista, Paris, and Washington, and illustrated literary journals. In 1934, he published the album “Mont Athos. Gravures sur bois” in Paris, featuring his woodcuts of Mount Athos, which he visited repeatedly, with a preface by C. Diehl.
His pursued version of “Greekness” is substantiated in his work through variations of Byzantine art—mainly from the Palaiologan period—and Fauvism. He painted primarily landscapes and portraits, still lifes, genre scenes, as well as mythological and religious themes, influenced by the works of K. Maleas, S. Papaloukas, the Early Renaissance, Byzantine art, and modern art movements.
He was a founding member of the “Techni” group and the Macedonian Art Society “Techni”.
Starting his exhibition activity in 1926, he participated in solo exhibitions in Thessaloniki, Athens, Alexandroupoli, Patras, Paris, Belgrade, London, and the USA (New York, Boston, New Jersey). He also took part in group exhibitions in Greece (Athens Panhellenic Exhibitions 1938–1975, Thessaloniki, Larissa, etc.) and abroad (Alexandria Biennale, 1st International Print Biennale in Kraków-1966, Print Salon in Ancona-1966, 1968, Salon d’Art Libre in Paris-1957, 1958, 1959, 1963, 1964, 1965, London, Stockholm, Oslo, Kraków, etc.), earning several distinctions.
For his contribution to painting, he was honored with the Silver Cross of the Order of the Phoenix in 1971.