Nikolaos Gyzis
Born	1 March 1842 Tinos, Greece
Died	4 January 1901 Munich, German Empire
Nationality	Greek
Education	School of Arts, Athens Royal Academy of Fine Arts, Munich
Known for	Painter and faculty member
Movement	Orientalist Munich School Genre art

Nikolaos Gyzis (Greek: Νικόλαος Γύζης [niˈko.la.os ˈʝi.zis]; German: Nikolaus Gysis; 1 March 1842 – 4 January 1901) is considered one of Greece's most important 19th century painters. He was most famous for his work Eros and the Painter, his first genre painting. It was auctioned in May 2006 at Bonhams in London, being last exhibited in Greece in 1928. He was the major representative of the Munich School, the major 19th-century Greek art movement.

Gyzis was born in the village of Sklavochori, on the island of Tinos which has a long artistic history. As his family settled in Athens in 1850, he soon embarked on a study at the Athens School of Fine Arts. His studies there formed the foundation of his artistic education and helped him to develop his natural skill in painting.

In 1865, having won a scholarship, he went to continue his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, where he settled for the rest of his life. He was very soon incorporated into the German pictorial climate, and became one of its most characteristic representatives of the Greek artistic movement of the Munich School. This is expressed in the painting News of Victory of 1871, which deals with the Franco-Prussian War, and the painting Apotheosis i Thriamvos tis Vavarias (Apotheosis or Triumph of Bavaria).

From 1886 onward he was professor at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, and gradually turned from the detailed realistic depictions towards compositions of a singularly impressionistic character. His students included Jan Vochoc, Ernst Oppler, Fritz Osswald, Anna May-Rychter,^[1] and Stefan Popescu (Romanian painter).

At the beginning of the 1870s returned to Greece for a period of several years, after which he produced a sequence paintings with more avowedly Greek themes, such as the Carnival at Athens and the Arravoniasmata (Engagement Ceremony) and a little later the painting After the Destruction of Psara. Towards the end of his life, in the 1890s, he took a turn toward more religious themes, with his best known work of the later period being Triumph of Religion.^[2] Gyzis died in Munich.

His works are today exhibited at museums and private collections in Greece, Germany, and elsewhere.

Gyzis' painting The Secret School was depicted on the reverse of the Greek 200 drachmas banknote of 1996–2001.^[3]

The Athenian neighbourhood Gyzi is named for him.

• 
  Ηistoria (1892)
• 
  Capuchin friar
• 
  Eros and the Painter
• 
  Learning by Heart
• 
  The Barber (1880)
• 
  After the destruction of Psara
• 
  The orphans
• 
  Oriental man with pipe
• 
  Artist's psyche
• 
  Oriental Warrior
• 
  Old man wearing a red fez
• 
  Peek-a-Boo (1882)
• 
  Girl Playing (1868)
• 
  Pastryman
• 
  The Glory of Psara

• Munich School
• National Gallery of Athens
• Art in modern Greece
• Greek Art
• Emfietzoglou Gallery

• Nikolaos Gyzis's The Secret School and an Ongoing National Discourse by Antonis Danos
• National Gallery of Greece
• Gallery of Paintings by Nikolaos Gyzis