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Painter and teacher, born in Anafotia, Cyprus, named Stasinos after the island’s epic poet. In 1953 he moved to England and, after washing up in a London Lyons’ Corner House and work as a waiter in Leeds, studied fine art at Leeds College of Art, 1957–60, where the enlightened head of art Harry Thubron was an influence and where fellow-students shortened his name to Stass, with which he then signed his work. Terry Frost, teaching in Leeds, encouraged Paraskos to visit St Ives, in Cornwall, where the work of such artists as Patrick Heron, Roger Hilton, Peter Lanyon and Ben Nicholson provided new influences. From 1960–9 Stass taught at Leeds College of Art and Leicester Polytechnic, and from 1969–89 was a full-time lecturer on the degree fine art course at Canterbury College of Art (later Kent Institute of Art and Design), finally as course leader for painting and senior lecturer.

Text source: 'Artists in Britain Since 1945' by David Buckman (Art Dictionaries Ltd, part of Sansom & Company)


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