Exhibition of historic photographs

November 29 - December 31, 2024

 
The Mount Athos Center, in collaboration with the Department of Art and Archaeology of Princeton University, the Youth Center of the Holy Metropolis of Lefkas and Ithaca, and the Municipality of Lefkas, presents an exhibition of historic photographs from an expedition undertaken on Mount Athos and Meteora in 1929 by three traveller-artists from Princeton.
The exhibition will be officially opened by His Eminence Theophilos, Metropolitan of Lefkas and Ithaca, at 19:30 on Friday 29 November 2024 at the ‘Theodoros Stamos’ Art Gallery of the Municipality of Lefkas (Marka Square, Lefkas Town).
 

The exhibition was first staged, with great success, in the exhibition space of the Mount Athos Center, Thessaloniki, in 2023, and later that year travelled to Kalambaka. In September 2024 it was presented at the Maliotis Cultural Center of the Hellenic College and the Holy Cross Orthodox Theological School in Boston, USA.     

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A few notes on the photographic archive and the exhibition:
Towards the end of 2017, during a move of the old libraries of Princeton University’s Department of Art and Archaeology, the staff discovered a hidden barrel containing photographic material relating to an unknown and long-forgotten journey.
Research carried out by members of the departmental staff revealed nine canisters of film that had been placed inside the barrel containing the record of a journey undertaken by a group of traveller-artists to Mount Athos and the Meteora. Further research succeeded in establishing a connection between the film material and 254 photographic prints and 81 glass lantern slides (16 of which were hand-coloured) that already existed, though unidentified, in the Visual Resources Collection of Princeton University.
The journey to Greece took place in the autumn of 1929 and the group of travellers comprised the Russian emigré, painter, explorer and gifted communicator Vladimir “Vovo” Perfilieff, the photographer, talented cinematographer and later Oscar prize-winner Floyd Crosby, and the architect and Princeton University graduate Gordon McCormick. The three travellers were accompanied by the young Anastasios Chatzimitsos, an interpreter from Thessaloniki.
The photographs in the collection bring to light rare material and the information they provide in the fields of history, social studies, folklore and architecture is extremely important as it extends the range of original sources and adds invaluable new data to the historical research on two leading monastic centres of the Orthodox world: Mount Athos and the Meteora.

Research & curation of the exhibition: Anastasios Douros, Director of the Mount Athos Center.

Official opening: 19:30, Friday 29 November 2024.

Duration of exhibition: 29/11/2024 – 31/12/2024.

Venue: ‘Theodoros Stamos’ Art Gallery of the Municipality of Lefkas (Marka Square, Lefkas Town).

Opening hours:
Monday – Saturday: 10:00 - 13:00 & 18:00 - 20:00.
Sunday: 10:30 - 13:00 & 18:00 - 20:00.  

For further information and to arrange school visits, please contact: tel. no. 6974 795265.