Anna Kafetsi is seen in a file photo in front of the museum she helped establish. [Alexandros Filippidis]
Anna Kafetsi, the influential Greek art historian and founding director of the National Museum of Contemporary Art (EMST), has died, the museum announced on Thursday. She was 70 years old.
Widely credited with helping shape Greece’s contemporary art scene, she established the country’s first national institution dedicated to contemporary art and served as its director for 14 years after taking the post in 2000, overseeing the institution from its earliest stages and building its collection and identity “from scratch,” the museum said in a statement.
“With her work and persistence, she laid the foundations for an institution that changed the landscape of contemporary art in Greece,” the museum said. “She supported artists, highlighted new directions and shaped a space open to experimentation and international exchange.”
Born in Athens, Kafetsi studied philosophy at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens before pursuing postgraduate and doctoral studies in aesthetics and art history in Paris.
