George Petrides (; born 1964) is a Greek American sculptor working between Athens and New York City. His work primarily consists of large-scale figurative sculptures in bronze, mixed media, and recycled plastic.
Early life and education Petrides was born in Athens, Greece, and spent his youth between Greece and the United States. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in classics from Harvard University in 1985 and dual master's degrees (an MBA and an MA in economics) from Stanford University in 1993.
Prior to pursuing art full-time in 2017, Petrides worked as a managing director in investment banking at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette. While working in business, he studied art part-time for over two decades at various institutions, including the Art Students League of New York, the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris, and the New York Studio School, where he earned a certificate in sculpture.
Artistic practice Petrides's work integrates traditional hand-sculpting with modern digital fabrication methods. His creative process typically begins by hand-modeling clay using live sitters or archival memory. The initial forms are then high-resolution 3D-scanned into digital software, scaled up through 3D printing or CNC milling, and reworked manually with power tools.
While some works are cast in bronze using traditional lost-wax casting, he frequently employs mixed media, integrating epoxy clay, milk glazes, ground metals, acrylic paints, and recycled plastics into finished surfaces. Art critics have highlighted his surface treatment, noting that his works purposefully retain visible finger marks and tool cuts to explore human experience and structural transition, rather than formal naturalism.
Notable works and exhibitions
Hellenic Heads Petrides is best known for "Hellenic Heads", a traveling exhibition of six oversized sculptural busts, exploring key historical periods of Greek history. Each bust is about a specific era—including Classical Greece, the Byzantine period, the Greek War of Independence, the 1922 Burning of Smyrna, the 1940s Axis occupation, and the modern era—to a member of the artist's family.
The exhibition premiered in May 2022 at the Greek embassy in Washington, D.C., and has since toured to institutions including the National Hellenic Museum in Chicago and as a collateral event during the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024.
Public and institutional commissions Petrides has completed public installations and private commissions internationally. Notable works include: Refugee – Woman of Smyrna (2022), a public bronze sculpture installed in Neo Psychiko, Athens, commissioned to mark the centennial of the 1922 Asia Minor Catastrophe. Head of Thalia II, a bronze figure in custom patina installed at the Tiffany & Co. Fifth Avenue landmark store in New York City. Aretaieia (2024), a public bronze sculpture installed on the grounds of the Aretaieion University Hospital in Athens.
Publications Hellenic Heads: George Petrides – Venice Edition (2025). Hellenic Heads: George Petrides – USA Edition (2024) Figure and Form: George Petrides and Nassos Daphnis (2023)
References
External links Official website