Marina Lambraki-Plaka, long-time National Gallery director, dead at 83

Marina Lambraki-Plaka, an art historian and the director of the National Gallery in Athens for almost 30 years, passed away in hospital on Monday morning at the age of 83.

Lambraki-Plaka was an archaeologist and professor emeritus of Art History at the School of Fine Arts. She served as the director of the National Gallery from 1992 and as deputy minister of culture in the caretaker government of 2015.

She was born in Arkalochori, Crete, in 1939 and studied at the Department of History and Archeology of the University of Athens and continued with postgraduate studies in Classical Archeology on the subject of “Prosocratic Philosophy and Art.”

She then completed postgraduate studies in History and Sociology of Art at the Sorbonne University and in 1973 he received a state doctoral diploma.

In 1975 she was elected professor at the Chair of Art History of the Athens School of Fine Arts.

During her tenure as president of the National Gallery, the museum expanded with new branches in Corfu, Nafplio, and the Sculpture Gallery in Goudi, 3,000 new works were acquired, including two paintings by Domenikos Theotokopoulos (El Greco) and important exhibitions of foreign and Greek artists were organized.