1851-1869
Yannoulis Chalepas was born on August 24, 1851, and grew up in an environment filled with dust, marble, and clay. His father, Ioannis, was counted among the greatest craftsmen of the island, a successful professional with extensive business activities in the Aegean, Smyrna, the coast of Asia Minor, Mount Athos, Bucharest, Syros, Athens, and Piraeus. The constant sound of hammers and mallets must have significantly influenced Yannoulis, the eldest of the family's five children.
He was sensitive, touchy, and eccentric. Growing up among shapes and forms, low walls, and a dusty environment - within his ancestral workshop, he realized he was born to be a sculptor.
His mother, Eirene, née Lambaditi, was a commanding, strict, taciturn, and oppressive mother. She considered the work of a marble craftsman inferior and tried forcefully, even through beatings, to deter her son from sculpting, with serious consequences for his mental health.
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