The exhibition “AGONIES – Diamantis” is presented from 29 March to 31 May 2026 at the Museum of Byzantine Culture, Thessaloniki. It focuses on the “Agonies”, a series of works by the pioneering Cypriot artist Adamantios Diamantis (1900-1994) and is co-organized by the Leventis Gallery, the Press and Information Office (PIO) of the Republic of Cyprus and the Consulate General of the Republic of Cyprus in Thessaloniki, with the support of the Museum of Byzantine Culture.

The exhibition “AGONIES – Diamantis” was first presented at the Leventis Gallery in Nicosia in 2018. Now the exhibition travels for the first time abroad, to Greece, and specifically to Thessaloniki, a city that Diamantis loved and appreciated very much, a city that hosted his emblematic work “The World of Cyprus” for more than three decades.

The “Agonies” series represents a creative innovation for the artist, but also one that was born out of tragedy. Faced with the historical events that marked his homeland in the turbulent 20th century – from the struggle of the Cypriots for independence (1955-1959) from the British colonial powers and the intercommunal riots that broke out in 1958 and intensified in 1963-1964, to the military coup and the Turkish invasion of 1974 – Diamantis sought a new visual language, a new way of expression, influenced by European artists, mainly by Pablo Picasso.

As he himself confided in 1959 in a letter – which he never sent – to his friend, the poet George Seferis: “I don’t know if I will ever be able to paint what I painted before. For four years now I have been struggling to see the angry ox, which has gone berserk, which is struggling wounded and angry.” Ultimately, the ox did not become the central figure: the focus of the entire series, the symbol of anguish and struggle, are the women. Women who face immediate danger, who struggle to save what they have most precious, their children and their animals, on which the rural world of Cyprus had based its survival.

The exhibition is curated by Loukia Loizou Hadjigavriil, Director of the “Anastasios G. Leventis” Foundation, Katerina Stefanidou, Director of the Leventis Gallery, and Despina Christofidou, Curator of the Leventis Gallery. The exhibition presents five of the eight works in the “Agonies” series, as well as numerous drafts, offering the public an insight into Diamantis’ artistic journey that culminated in the final painting “Agonies Before and After”. The threat in Diamantis’ “Agonies” is not depicted, but is felt, implied; for this reason, his works are both timely and timeless, opening a dialogue on the crucial issues of displacement and uncertainty of our time.

Visitors to the exhibition will also have the opportunity to watch an excerpt from the new episode of the successful film series produced by the Press and Information Office, titled “Art in the city”, which is dedicated to Adamantios Diamantis.