Special Information for the Artist
Chrysanthos (Mentis) Bostantzoglou, better known by the alias Bost was a cartoonist and caricaturist, playwright,lyricist and painter.
Born in Istanbul, in 1918 and died, in 1995. He was married to Maria Bostantzoglou, gender Papagiannakopoulou. His sons, John and Costas is now renowned designer and actress, respectively.
His work includes political cartoons and vignettes, illustrated books and magazines, ten plays and many paintings. For a short period he worked in advertising where the printed entries for RENAULT left literally an era due to audacity and differentiation.
In 1939 when his family had returned to Greece, was introduced at the School of Fine Arts, which he quit after six months. During the German occupation was a member of EAM (1942) and participated in the National Resistance.
His career as a cartoonist began with illustrations of children's magazines and books. The first solo book was published at his own expenses in 1945 and was titled "St. Fanourios". In 1952 he got a job in the newspaper Kathimerini. In 1954 he started working in the magazine "Pictures". Then employed as a cartoonist in the magazine "Taxydromos". In 1958 presented in the column, which was titled "The field of Bost", the three most famous heroes: Mom-Greece, Peinaleon and Anergitsa.
In 1966 he opened his own gift shop called "Laikai Eikonai". Decorated more than 27,000 gifts, with sketches and paintings, and misspelled inscriptions, verses and dedications.
Worked with magazines such as "Omada", "Theatis", "Eleftheria" and the "Avgi" newspaper. Because of the political cartoons of the persecution suffered and received several complaints. He tried several times to stand as a member of the Left parties, but never managed to be elected.
Since the mid-1960's onwards, he devoted himself to painting and theater. The satirical theatrical works written in fifteen. Occasionally worked again with the sketches and political cartoons. During this period worked with the magazine Postman, the Thourio, the Men's Look and newspapers Proini and Kiriakatiki Eleftherotipia. He also held 16 personal
exhibitions.
He died on December 13, 1995.
A Bost deemed able to create a very personal and recognizable style as a satirical cartoonist, editor, playwright, but also a painter. One of the key features of the project is the language and the deliberately misspelled texts.
As he said himself, making a mockery of puristic thought that maybe able to help more rapid introduction of demotic language. Often, the corruption of the word or misspelled version of the sound of deliberately create associations with other concepts, which ridicules. Also frequently used metaphors in the literal sense.
His satire is aimed mainly to petty philistine Greek post-war decades, the primacy the imperfect knowledge and upstarting the slavishness, the sharp class contradictions of postwar Greece and the Greek political life. Bost satirize mostly the dependence of Greece from the foreign agent, the nationalistic right-wing parties and the institution of the Kingdom, but in many texts and ridicules the left wing, to which he belonged.
One of the characteristics of the whole range of his work (drawings, documents, paintings and drama) was the intermingling of the various phases of Greek history and the work of coexisting heroes of antiquity, Byzantium, 1821, the poem of 1940 by Constantine Karamanlis and Onassis.
It was self-taught painter and his works were highly influenced by the naive folk style of painting and especially Theophilos, and the figures of shadow theater,with elements surrealism. The paintings are the heroes of antiquity and the Revolution of 1821 and historic couples.
At times of humorous searches, Bost wrote the lyrics for 3 songs which became hits in the early 60's. These are "The gravediggers" music Giannis Markopoulos , interpretation George Zografos, and "The Island of the Azores" and "Romvi "music by Mikis Theodorakis, Gregory Bithikotsis interpretation.
