Benaki show spotlights an oft-overlooked artist

"What are you going to be when you grow up?" actress Marika Kotopouli asked 12-year-old Demosthenis (Dimos) Skoulakis while visiting the boy's parents in the family's Athens home in the early 1950s. "An artist," he responded without hesitation. "Yannis, come meet a colleague," she said laughing to her friend, the artist Yannis Tsarouchis.
Little did she know that this was exactly what the boy would do when he grew up, battling for a place in the classes of Athens School of Fine Arts masters such as Giorgos Mavroidis and Yiannis Moralis against the opposition of his father who had barged into his room one day and destroyed all his paintings and implements in a fit of rage.

Skoulakis died in 2014, leaving behind a fascinating and multifaceted oeuvre and a reputation for being one of those understated artists who aren't interested in the spotlight. Modest to the marrow,...