Mousouris (Giophyllis), Spyros (Fotos) (Corfu 1887 – Athens, 1981). Journalist, poet, and painter. His real name was Spyros Mousouris, brother of actor Kostas Mousouris. He graduated from high school in Corfu and took courses in painting and sculpture at the island’s School of Art. He continued his studies in Athens at the School of Fine Arts and also took courses in Law and Philosophy at the University of Athens.

His career as a reporter began in 1907, when he was hired for Vlasis Gavriilidis’ newspaper Akropolis where he worked for fifty years. Publisher and editor of the magazines Politismos (1921-1922) and Protoporia (1929-1931), he moved to Hermoupolis on the island of Syros in 1917, on instructions from Eleftherios Venizelos, to publish (1918-1920) the newspaper Phileleftheros three times a week, revealing himself as a “social democrat” which did not prevent him later from working as editor on the newspaper Proia, owned by the Pesmazoglou brothers, or on Kostas Athanatos’ newspaper Eleftheros Anthropos (1930-1938), where he established the special literary page. One of the first members of the Journalists' Union of Athens Daily Newspapers (ESIEA), he was chief editor of the newspaper Kyriaki tou Eleftherou Vimatos (1926-1928) and the Ephimeris tou Chrimatistiriou and collaborated with many newspapers and periodicals, such as Rizospastis, Eleftheros Logos, Dimokratia, Kathimerini, Asyrmatos, Ethnos, Eleftheros Typos, and the magazine Evdomas, and others.

His poems were collected in the publication Poetry of Half a Century (1964). He co-authored novels, short stories and plays. His two studies circulated in 1951 entitled Greek Woodcarving and Supplement to the bibliography of Angelos Sikelianos and in 1962 and 1963 his two-volume History of Modern Greek Art was published. All publications were in Greek. He showed his paintings in three solo exhibitions and in many group ones.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kostas Mayer, History of the Greek Press, (in Greek), vol. II, Athens 1959, p. 238; Nikos Papadimitriou, The writers of Athenian journalism, (in Greek), vol. I, Giovanis, Athens 1989, p. 58-60; Kostas Bastias, Literary Walks –Second Cycle, , Athens, Kastaniotis 2002, p. 299-304; World Biographical Dictionary, (in Greek), vol. 3, Ekdotiki Athenon, Athens 1985, p. 60-61.

​Giannis K. Bastias