This paper reconsiders the term ‘Generation of the Thirties’ in modern Greek art, arguing that the artists retrospectively grouped under this label emerged mainly after the Second World War and were united by a time-specific pursuit of ‘Greekness’. It examines how their synthesis of local tradition and European modernism reflected post-war quests for national identity and was shaped by Cold War cultural politics and mass media stereotypes. It traces the history of the term ‘Generation of the Thirties’ in art, explores its academic and curatorial consolidation in the late 1970s, and examines why it became attractive during the Metapolitefsi era.
