Michael Fokas

Michael Fokas (; 1473–1504), also known as Migiel Fuca, was a Greek icon painter and art instructor. He came from a prominent family of painters, the founders of the Cretan school; working in this style, Fokas's workshop mass-produced icons for Greek and Italian clients. No surviving painting bears Fokas's signature, but history has preserved a commission for 200 icons which he received on July 4, 1499. This important document charges Fokas to produce works based upon the prototype Madre della Consolazione, originally created by Nikolaos Tzafouris and modeled after Giovanni Bellini.

Fokas's coworkers were Antonios Tajiaperas, Nikolaos Gripiotis, and Georgios Mitsoconstantinos. His granduncle was Manuel Fokas, also a prominent icon painter. The family was directly affiliated with another famous exponent of the Cretan school, Andreas Pavias.

History Michael Fokas was born on the island of Crete, in the city of Heraklion. His family had worked successfully as painters since the Palaeologan Renaissance, and the name Fokas had consequently become a standard in the visual arts.

As with his two collaborators, Fokas has left behind no signed works. There is a large corpus of extant icons from the Cretan school, but, in the absence of artists' signatures, none can be traced back to the massive 1499 commission. Following the norms of the time, Fokas's signature would have been χειρ Φωκά or Migiel Fuca Pinxit.

Fokas was married twice. His first wife was named Maria Yiatana, and his second Francheskina. On February 15, 1500, he was hired to take an artistic pupil named Giannis Koronaios. Fokas died four years later. His widow Francheskina sold two mansions and four small houses on August 28, 1504.

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