Tributes to famed Greek Australian artist Alkis Astras after he passes away on Gold Coast

Tributes are being paid after the death of a Gold Coast artist whose works were collected by the likes of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and former PM Sir Robert Menzies.

Artist Alkis Astras, who passed away on the Gold Coast on Tuesday October 1, 2024.

A famed Greek Australian artist whose works were collected by the likes of Jackie Kennedy Onassis and former Australian Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies has died on the Gold Coast, aged 94.

Alkis Astras passed away on Tuesday in a Merrimac nursing home with his family by his side.

Although relatively unknown in Australia, he was renowned in his native Greece where he became the only artist to hold an exhibition at Mt Athos, the world’s oldest continuing monastery and where King Charles regularly visits.

Born in Athens near the Acropolis, Mr Alkis took his first drawing lessons aged 16 and went on to study architecture to placate his parents.

But his family said art was his first love and he painted dozens of life-like works from his travels around the globe.

A painting by artist Alkis Astras.

They included a collection of paintings from his travels through Arnhem Land soon after he migrated to Australia with wife Athina in the early 1960s. He also lived in and painted scenes from Mt Isa.

He lived with the monks of Mt Athos and spent months of his life in India, Indonesia and China during the reign of Communist leader Mao Zedong.

“My life is a complex life; I changed many countries and travelled a lot,” he said in a 2013 newspaper interview.

“I was travelling to search the world and to get a new subject for my painting. I like travelling, but not as a tourist. I like to travel, to live amongst the people I visit.”

A painting by artist Alkis Astras.

A painting by artist Alkis Astras.

Mr Astras and his wife settled on the Gold Coast about 20 years ago after raising a family – children Oresti, Mariette and Critton – on the Sunshine Coast.

The family still has letters from Jackie Kennedy’s secretary, Menzies himself and the abbot of Mt Athos thanking Mr Alkis for his paintings.

“Dad was the last of the method artists,” said Critton, a Gold Coast identity.

“He was an enigma in the art world, always looking where his next challenge would take him. “Whatever subject Dad would paint, he would live with it and experience it sometimes for months, then go back to his studio and paint what he had absorbed.

“Whether it was living with the Aborigines in the 1960s or the Mt Isa miners in the ’70s, he experienced what he painted.

“He told great stories about his lifetime adventures and loved his family dearly.”

Artist Alkis Astras with his family.

A painting by artist Alkis Astras.

Mr Astras’ nephew, Cratis Hippocrates, said his uncle grew up in an era when many Greek immigrants worked in manual labour and retail jobs.

“Uncle Alkis was an artist and architect who worked on significant projects with renowned Queensland architect Robin Gibson, who also collected his art,” Mr Hippocrates said.

“He became an inspiration for myself and my musician brother John. We got educated and moved into journalism, academia and music and worked in locations around the world following his example of travel and work.

A painting by artist Alkis Astras.

“He was a colourful raconteur with many sides to his humour in both Greek and English language, relaying stories from his travels to the most remote areas of Australia in the 1960s when he took his family of five in a VW campervan all around the country from Melbourne.

“He and Athina owned several art galleries and he was a serious artist, with many sold-out exhibitions and a significant legacy collected by galleries in Australia, Greece and the US.

“He was a great guy and fun.”

Originally published as Tributes to famed Greek Australian artist Alkis Astras after he passes away on Gold Coast