Perifimou.

Psyche, 1988. gouache on paper.

Perifimou  (Alexander Georgiou) was born in 1916, in Cyprus. His family suffered a great deal of poverty and eventually he immigrated to Great Britain in 1935. He worked as a tailor and as a cook, before serving in World War II.

In the 70's he became a guard at the Royal Academy, and later at the Tate. It was during this time that he began to make his fist drawings. These were  noticed by Victor Musgrave, an art dealer, curator and champion of Art Brut and Outsider Art who brought Perfimou to the attention of the art world.
Perifimou’s mysterious paintings relate strange undulating narratives in bold, colorful figures and soft forms. Weird quasi-mystical creatures interrelate with awkward looking figures. Perifimou died in 2001.