The Nicolas and Elena Calas Archive

Nicolas Calas

The Library houses the archives of the Greek-American surrealist poet and art historian Nicolas Calas.

Nicolas Calas (Νίκολας Κάλας) was a major contributor in the diffusion and evolution of the avant-garde, with essays on literature, politics, art and cinema. An active member of the French surrealist group since 1937, he settled in Paris and published his first book of essays as result of encouragement of André Breton. His arrival to New York in 1940 matters in the surrealism dissemination in the United States.
Further information on Calas' life and work may be found in a Wikipedia article.
In the Greek State Television (ERT) Digital Archives a documentary on his life and work is available.

In 1999 the Danish Institute at Athens received 34 large parcels containing the material that was to become the Nicolas & Elena Calas Archive.
The parcels had been sent from the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art north of Copenhagen, where they had been stored for almost ten years.

The material which consists of letters, essays, articles, photos and more has been organized and catalogued and is now presentable to scholars and researchers in the reading room of the Nordic Library.

A short catalogue of the Calas archive is accessible here and the full Calas archive catalogue (in pdf format) may be downloaded.