Stass Paraskos
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Stass Paraskos (Στας Παράσκος; 17 March 1933 – 4 March 2014) was an artist from Cyprus, although much of his life was spent teaching and working in England.
Obscenity trial
In 1966 Paraskos was involved in a notorious court case, which became known as the Stass Paraskos Obscenity Trial, in which it was alleged he displayed paintings that were 'lewd and obscene', in contravention of the Vagrancy Act 1838. The court case was one of a number of important legal challenges to the freedom of the arts in the 1960s and 70s, starting with the Lady Chatterley trial in 1960, and ending with the Oz magazine trial in 1971. Despite luminaries of the art world speaking in Paraskos's defence, including Sir Herbert Read and Norbert Lynton, and messages of support from Britain's Home Secretary Roy Jenkins, Paraskos lost the trial and was fined five pounds. Out of this Paraskos was invited in 1967 to take part in a group exhibition, Fantasy and Figuration, alongside Pat Douthwaite, Herbert Kitchen and Ian Dury at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. Dury was later to become a close friend as they both began teaching at Canterbury College of Art in 1970. Paraskos became the last British artist to be successfully prosecuted for obscenity under the Vagrancy Act 1838. An exhibition recreating the 1966 Leeds exhibition was staged at the Tetley Arts Centre in Leeds in 2016 to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the original exhibition and prosecution.
See also
- Margaret Paraskos, his daughter, and an artist
