George
Petrides
An internationally recognised sculptor working between Athens and New York, Petrides brings personal narrative, cultural heritage and digital fabrication into his practice.
The sculptor
An internationally recognised sculptor, Petrides has created forty permanent public sculptures across eight countries and seven sectors—fifteen outdoor and twenty-five indoor—with commissions including works for the White House, Tiffany & Co., and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. His work brings personal narrative and cultural heritage together through the human figure. He combines traditional sculptural methods with digital fabrication: the process begins in clay and moves through 3D scanning, digital sculpting, and custom fabrication in recycled and upcycled materials. Each work is then reworked and finished by hand. Other works are cast in bronze.
Education and background
Petrides studied Classics at Harvard College (B.A., 1985) and pursued graduate study at Stanford University (M.B.A. and M.A., 1993).
He began studying and practicing art part-time in 1996 while working in international finance, including senior roles at Lazard Frères and Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. He first enrolled at the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture in 2001, continued his studies over the following two decades, and received a Certificate in Sculpture in 2022. In 2017, he committed to art full-time.
Love in the work
The faces in Petrides’ sculpture are most often those of the people he loves. Thalia, the portrait from which Janus of Love developed, is modelled on his mother. In Hellenic Heads: Legacy and Renewal, Petrides joins six periods of Greek history to six members of his family across four generations; his public commissions include works made for maternity and children’s hospitals. In each case the portrait is of a specific person, not a type. That is the standard Janus of Love holds itself to: a woman’s face used to honour a woman, and a work about love made from the face of someone the artist loves.
Source: Hellenic Heads: Legacy and Renewal, exhibition catalogue, pp. 9 and 47.
Wider practice
Petrides’ wider practice includes public sculpture and the touring exhibition Hellenic Heads: Legacy and Renewal, whose eighth and final venue is Berlin, where it is on view until 8 January 2027.