Hermon di Giovanno

Who was Hermon di Giovanno?

Hermon di Giovanno was a Greek mystic painter.

He was born in Mytilene, Lesbos Island, Greece, but lived for most of his life in Boston, Massachusetts. In early adulthood, he performed as an operatic tenor, but was eventually forced to abandon his singing career after suffering difficulties with his voice. He had changed his name to an Italian one because he had been advised that it would assist him with his opera career. According to his close friend, the composer Alan Hovhaness, "...he wanted to be an opera singer when he was young. Some local conductor said he should have an Italian name, so he had this peculiar name that didn't have anything to do with him, but is a translation."

In Boston, while working at the counter of a Boston-area Hayes-Bickford's, he befriended Alan Hovhaness and the painter Hyman Bloom, who often ate dinner there. Beginning around the early 1940s, the three often met to listen to Indian classical music and discuss various mystical subjects. Also a member of this circle was Dr. Elizabeth A. Gregory, a Boston pediatrician to whom di Giovanno gave a number of his paintings just before his final return to Greece.