Panayiotis Tetsis was born in 1925, in Hydra and died in Athens in 2016. He settled with his family in Piraeus in 1937, but every summer he returned to Hydra, where he began to paint. In Hydra, he also met Nikos Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas and Dimitris Pikionis, whom he considered his indirect teachers. In 1940, Klaus Frieslander gave him his first Painting lessons and then he continueed his studies at the Athens School of Fine Arts (1943-1949). A year before graduating, he presented his first solo exhibition (Romvos Gallery, 1948). In 1951 he began to teach as assistant at the Freehand Drawing School of the National Technical University in Athens, with Hadjikyriakos-Ghikas as head professor. He continued his studies in Paris (1953-1956) on a Greek State Scholarships Foundation, where, among other courses, he attended copperplate engraving classes under Edward Goerg at the École des Beaux-Arts. Upon his return to Greece, he settled in Athens, where he lived and worked until his death.

The painting was displayed at the art exhibition “The struggles of Greeks fighting at sea through time” which was organized by Hellenic Navy on board of the Floating Naval Museum Battleship “Georgios Averof” in June 1996, in order to honor the ordeals of Greek seamen fighting for the protection of Hellenic seas.

The success of the exhibition led the organizers to move it a few months later to the Hall of the French Institute at the invitation of Thessaloniki 1997 European Capital of Culture, still in collaboration with the Hellenic Navy General Staff.