The Folk Paintings of Peter and Helen Contis

Featuring paintings by Peter and Helen Contis, Greek-American artists who settled in Pittsburgh in the 1930s and created wonderfully imaginative paintings of their adopted home as well as memories of Greece. Concept is pleased to feature a group of paintings being offered for sale by the Contis family in our Annex Gallery space.

Peter Contis emigrated to Pittsburgh in 1910 and began working in the restaurant business with his brothers. Peter later returned to his homeland of Greece and met Helen in 1928; they married three months later. Moving back to Pittsburgh, Peter eventually opened a restaurant called the Neon Grill in 1932, while Helen raised their three children. Nearly thirty years later, the restaurant was closed and razed, allowing the Contis' to realize their talent in art. A religious man all his life, Peter began painting landscapes, both of Pittsburgh and Greece, and other still lifes, focusing on God's perfect affection in nature: his buildings are symmetrical and colors are vivid. Helen's talents were not revealed until after Peter's death in 1973, when she began to paint poetic landscapes and still lifes on her own. Helen died in 2004.