Yannis Tsarouchis was one of the most important Greek artists of the 20th century. He was born near Athens in 1910, and died there in 1989, but in between he traveled and for 13 years he lived in Paris. Tsarouchis supported his painting as a set and costume designer, working on opera productions at La Scala and Covent Garden (he dressed Maria Callas in Médée). His paintings are Whitmanesque, both rough and dreamy—the directness of Byzantine art touched with Impressionism. They are also homoerotic (he liked to paint men with butterfly wings). Tsarouchis much desired to show his paintings in America, but it never happened. Now it has. Wrightwood 659 is the first gallery in the U.S. to exhibit the fascinating work of Tsarouchis, with 200 paintings and works on paper in the show. —L.J.