170 years ago, the outstanding artist and teacher of Greek origin Kyriak Konstantinovich Kostandi (1852-1921) was born on October 3, 1852 in the village of Dofinovka near Odessa. He graduated from the Odessa Drawing School in 1874 and the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg in 1882. From 1885 until his death in 1921, he taught at the Odessa Art School, and from 1916 he also headed the Odessa City Museum of Fine Arts. K. Kostandi was the co-founder (1890) and then chairman (1902-1921) of the Association of South Russian Artists, which after his death existed as the “Kostandi Art Society” (1922-1929).

The painter K.K. Kostandi is known primarily as the creator of landscapes, portraits, and genre paintings. In Ukraine, some of his works can be seen today in the Odessa Art Museum, and some of them are in private collections.

In today’s Odessa, a street, three lanes and the Children’s Art School No. 1 are named after K.K. Kostandi. In 2017, the name of the great master was also immortalized on the “Alley of Stars” in Teatralna Square in Odessa. The Branch of the Hellenic Foundation for Culture, in memory of the outstanding artist, published a book “Kyriak Kostandi and Greek Artists in Odessa, late XIX – early XX centuries” (Odessa: Druk, 2002), which is available for reading at the library of the HFC Branch in Odessa.