Well-known works by Greek Cypriot artists Yiorgos Paul Georgiou, Stelios Votsis, and Christophoros Savva are among the 219 which the north will return to their owners as part of a confidence-building measure agreed between the two leaders last week.
The measure will also see the return of audio-visual material by Turkish Cypriot artists stored by the state broadcaster, CyBC.
According to the co-chairman of the bicommuncal technical committee on culture, Kani Kanol, 219 works are stored at the Ataturk Cultural Centre in Nicosia – 120 belonging to 36 different Greek Cypriot painters, some of whom have since died.
Among the works are paintings from Yiorgos Paul Georgiou, Stelios Votsis, and Christophoros Savva.
The rest are either unsigned or the signature is not legible, Kanol said.
The exchange was agreed by President Nicos Anastasiades and Turkish Cypriot leader Mustafa Akinci as a CBM during a meeting last week.
Kanol said the audiovisual material was very important for the community’s culture.
The way the works will be returned will be decided in a meeting of the committee on March 13.
The committee will draft a report with a roadmap and handed over to the two leaders. Following that, a date will be set for the mutual exchange of the works.
Kanol said the exchange must be done carefully and lawfully since some may belong to the descendants of the painters or a gallery.
Kanol said it was known to him and other Turkish Cypriot artists that paintings had been stored at the cultural centre and that they were not being maintained well, resulting in some damage.
The members of the technical committee had asked for them to be returned to their owners in the past but there was no political will.
He said they started cataloguing the works at the beginning of 2016, undertaken by a group of Turkish Cypriot artists.
Of the audio-visual works stored by the state broadcaster, Kanol said it dated back to the decades before 1963 and it was expected to shine light on Turkish Cypriot tradition, culture, and art.
“It is the artistic and cultural product of remarkable artists and programme producers,” he said. “These will be placed in our archive and everyone can have access. This is something we attach great importance to.”
Kanol said in the past individual Turkish Cypriots had requested material from CyBC but they paid a high price for it.
Following the exchange, the two sides can draw lists of ‘lost’ works or inventory others located elsewhere so that they too can be returned to their owners, he said.
