Zanalis, Vlassis

Palassis (Vlase) Ioannis Zanailis (Zanalis) was born on Castellorizo on 12th January 1902. His father, Ioannis, was a sailor. His mother, Eleni (nee Poneros), was a skilled gold embroiderer in her youth. In 1914, Vlase accompanied his uncle, Antoni Poneros, to Western Australia. A few years later Poneros brought out his wife, their two children and his sister, Eleni Zanalis. When Zanalis was in his late teens he gained the patronage of Michael Michelides. Michelides and his older brother Peter were prominent Perth businessmen, operating Michelides Tobacco Ltd. With Michelides’ support Zanalis enrolled at Perth Technical School in St George’s Terrace, where he came under the tutelage of renowned WA artist Robert James Linton. At a time when his compatriots sought to advance themselves by entering small business and ethnic community politics Zanalis chose to be different, forging an alternative path which would see him become a noted iconographer, portraitist and landscape artist. He would gain national acclaim in 1934 for his The Birth of a Nation, but it was his work after 1949 on the Australian landscape and Indigenous themes, notably his memorial to Indigenous Australians consisting of 88 images, that dominated his life paintings. However, it is his industrial depictions that modern critics regard as his best work. A major commission that came Zanalis’ way in 1936 was to decorate the Greek Orthodox Church of Saints Constantine and Helene being completed in Northbridge. He had previously painted, in 1935, icons in the Greek Orthodox Church at Innisfail in North Queensland and decorated St Sophia’s Cathedral in Sydney. His icons are also to be found at the Greek churches in Bunbury, Geraldton and, until recently, the Annunciation of Our Lady (Evangelismos) in West Perth as well as the Serbian Church of Saint Savas in East Perth. During 1940, Zanalis and his mother had moved to Adelaide. Here he worked in a munitions factory until his mother’s passing when he left for Sydney, where he met and married in 1947 Mary (Molly) Arnold. She was originally from Perth and like Zanalis, a Christian Scientist. He had abandoned Orthodoxy in about 1938 to embrace Christian Science, to which he remained loyal until his death in 1973. Beyond the religious paintings Zanalis captured in sweeping landscapes the contrasting red soils and white trees of the Pilbara, the rugged grandeur of Central Australia and the unique character of the Kimberley. Midway through his career, Zanalis began a romantic relationship with Indigenous culture, which dominated his art for the last twenty years of his life. He became one of the first non-Indigenous artists to incorporate the symbols of Indigenous art into his own work, and to value Indigenous Australians and their culture. After a short illness, Vlase Zanalis died on November 8th 1973 and was cremated at Karrakatta cemetery. source: https://www.castellorizo.org/newsletter/newsletter9.pdf