Voula Papaioannou

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Voula Papaioannou ( Greek Βούλα Παπαϊωάννου , 1898 - 1990 ) was a Greek photographer who, with her work on the Greek people and the Greek landscape, also attracted attention beyond her home country, especially in France, Germany and Switzerland.

Live and act

Voula Papaioannou was born in Lamia in central Greece and grew up in Athens . There she studied at the Technical University and developed an interest in photography. After divorcing the well-known writer and literary critic Ioannis Zervos, she began working as a professional photographer in 1937. For her first commissions, she took on exhibitions in Athens museums and monasteries in the Attica region .

Using the “ social documentary photography ” approach , Papaioannou worked illegally during World War II . So she set her camera on soldiers leaving for the front, on war victims and starving children , in order to document the humanitarian consequences of the Italian and German occupation .

She smuggled the photos out of the country at risk of death. They are kept in a “black folder” in the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki .

After the liberation, Papaioannou became a member of the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration), for which she documented the reconstruction as head of the photography department. Above all, she brought the harsh living conditions in the countryside to the fore. According to one critic, they show the Greek population less from a romantic perspective than as proud, independent and, despite their poverty, optimistic people.

Since the 1990s, interest in the work of Voula Papaioannou revived, which is documented by several exhibitions and book publications. In 2016, the then Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier spoke at the opening of an exhibition in Thessaloniki.

Book publications

  • Hellas. 1949.
  • La Grèce à ciel crotchless. La Guilde du Livre et Editions Clairefontaine Lausanne, 1952.
  • Iles Grecques. La Guilde du Livre et Editions Clairefontaine Lausanne, 1956.
  • Images of despair and hope. Greece 1940-1960. Photo exhibition. Foundation for Greek Culture, Berlin and Benaki Museum, Athens 1995.
  • Fani Konstantinou, Johanna Weber, Stavros Petsopoulos: Η φωτογράφος Βούλα Παπαϊωάννου. Από το Φωτογραφικό Αρχείο του Μουσείου Μπενάκη. Benaki Museum, Athens 2006, ISBN 960-325-649-8 , p. 648.

Exhibitions (selection)

  • 1994: Images of hopelessness and hope. Renos Xippas Gallery, Paris. December 18-22, 1994.
  • 2006: Homage. Benaki Museum , Athens. October 2 - November 19, 2006.
  • 2016: Split memory. Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki. Opening on December 4th, 2016.
  • 2017: Portrayals of History 1940–1960 (with Dimitris Harissiadis). Museum of Photography, Thessaloniki. April 6 - September 10, 2017.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ According to other sources, she studied painting. Voula Papaïoannou: Images of hopelessness and hope. In: IRIS. Greek Culture Foundation. Double issue 3–4 / 1994.
  2. ↑ David Wills (Ed.): Greece and Britain since 1945. 2nd edition. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Newcastle upon Tyne 2014, p. 72.
  3. ↑ Alexandra Moschovi, Manolis Skoufias: Portrayals of History, Voula Papaioannou - Dimitris Harissiadis 1940-1960. Thessaloniki Museum of Photography.
  4. ^ Voula Papaioannou. Images of hopelessness and hope. In: IRIS. Greek Culture Foundation. Double issue 3–4 / 1994.
  5. ↑ Dimitris Damascus: Η φωτογραφία - ντοκουμέντο ως πράξη αντίστασης κατά της γερμανοϊταλικής κατοχής (1941–1944). Voula Papaïoannou: The photo documentary as resistance against the German-Italian occupation (1941–1944). (Greek)
  6. ↑ Speech by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the opening of the exhibition "Split Memory" in the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki. December 4, 2016. Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany
  7. ↑ Voula Papaïoannou. Images of hopelessness and hope. in: IRIS. Greek Culture Foundation. Double issue 3–4 / 1994.
  8. ^ Mousio Benaki: Images of despair and hope: Greece 1940-1960 . Benaki Museum, Athens 1995, ISBN 978-960-85160-3-8 .
  9. ↑ Speech by Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the opening of the exhibition "Split Memory" in the Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art in Thessaloniki. December 4, 2016. Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany
personal data
SURNAME Papaioannou, Voula
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Greek photographer
DATE OF BIRTH 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Lamia, Greece
DATE OF DEATH 1990