The Greek House: The Story of a Painter's Love Affair with the Island of Sifnos

A richly rewarding narrative about a young painters love affair with the Greek island of Sifnos When Christian Brechneff first set foot on the Greek island of Sifnos it was the spring of 1972 and he was a twenty-one-year-old painter searching for artistic inspiration and a quiet place to work. There this Swiss child of Russian migrs adrift and confused about his sexuality found something extraordinary. In Sifnos he found a muse a subject he was to paint for years and a sanctuary. In The Greek House Brechneff tells a funny touching narrative about his relationship to Sifnos writing with warmth about its unforgettable residents and the house he bought in a hilltop farm village. This is the story of how he fell in love with Greece and how it became a haven from the complexities of his life in Western Europe and New York. It is the story of his village and of the island during the thirty-odd years he owned the housefrom a time when there were barely any roads to the arrival of the modern world with its tourists and high-speed boats and the euro. And it is the story of the end of the love affairhow the island changed and he changed how he discovered he had outgrown Sifnos or couldnt grow there anymore. The Greek House is a celebration of place and an honest narrative of self-discovery. In its pages a nave and inexperienced young man comes into his own. Weaving himself into the life of the island painting it year after year he finds a place he can call home.