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of the A. G. Leventis Gallery and Mr Yiannis
Toumazis, Board of Directors Chairman of the
Cyprus Theatre Museum.
Addressing attendees, the Minister of Education
and Culture highlighted the benefits and perks that
the state’s official recognition offers museums,
such as the fact that they gain access to state
sponsorships thus increasing their ability to grow,
and that they have the ability to develop into
educational and cultural organisations.
Mr Kadis said theA. G. Leventis Gallery, even after
just one year of operating, had made its presence
felt in the island’s cultural scene. He added that the
Gallery operated like a living organism, playing
a catalytic role in forming the capital’s cultural
identity.
The Cyprus Theatre Museum, which is housed at
the Panos Solomides Culture Centre since 2012,
has been embraced by the public of Limassol, and
not only, said the Minister.
“Both these museums are major culture elements
for our country,” said Mr Kadis. “Warm
congratulations are warranted for everyone who
contributed and worked towards creating and
organising them, as well as for their successful
operation and their recognition, which we are
happy to welcome today,” he concluded.
Anastasios G. Leventis
Anastasios G. Leventis was born in Cyprus in
December 1902, in the Cypriot mountain village of
Lemythou, the home of his mother Salome.
Anastasios’ secondary education was at the Mitsis
School in Lemythou, founded by an emigrant from
the village who had made his fortune in Egypt and
set up a school that specialised in more commercial
subjects and foreign languages. At the end of the
First World War the young Anastasios, determined
to improve his education and prospects, travelled
to visit his elder brother, George, who was already
based in Egypt. From there he boarded a ship to
Marseilles, where he first found work and then
completed his commercial education at the ‘Ecole
Superieure de Commerce’ in Bordeaux.
He went on to found one of the biggest enterprises
inWest Africa in 1936, A.G. Leventis & Company
Limited, and become a hugely successful
businessman.
Business was by no meansAnastasios G. Leventis’
only interest. He also helped with many projects
to improve life in the Cypriot villages connected
to his family, supporting many students at courses
overseas, and helping many in need.
These efforts were intensified in the face of the
political turmoil that unfolded in Cyprus in the late
50’s and 60’s, and Anastasios G. Leventis aided
his newly independent homeland in a number
of ways. President Makarios, with whom he had
collaborated to found the main old people’s home
in Nicosia, made use of Anastasios’ political
expertise at several meetings of the United Nations
General Assembly and, in 1966, appointed him
Cyprus’ first Ambassador and Permanent Delegate
to UNESCO, in recognition of his support for
education and the cultural heritage of Cyprus.
The 1974 invasion of Cyprus imposed a particular
burden onAnastasios G. Leventis. Not onlywas his
own home village, Petra, occupied by the Turkish
army, with the loss of the cultural centre and family
church he himself had built, but he had to deal, at
UNESCO, with the overwhelming problem of the
invaders’ destruction of Cypriot cultural heritage.
He gave what help he could to repatriate treasures
stolen and smuggled abroad, but above all, it was
the needs of the injured and the refugees that he
did his best to help alleviate. The great pressures
of the time may have been to blame for his last
serious illness at the end of 1976. Anastasios G.
Leventis died in October 1978 having provided
for the establishment of a Foundation to support
educational, cultural, artistic and philanthropic
causes in Cyprus, Greece and elsewhere.
The A. G. Leventis Foundation formally came
into being in May 1979 and had begun to operate
on a small scale by the end of that year. Over the
following three years the scope and volume of its
activities gradually increased, so that within thirty
years of its founder’s death, the A. G. Leventis
Foundation can claim a fully-fledged operating
record of more than twenty five years.
The A.G. Leventis Gallery in Nicosia
The Greek Collection
The Paris Collection
Anastasios G. Leventis
