Collection of Nelly’s originals goes on display on Crete
Michalis Krasakis tells Kathimerini how he started seeking out works by the photographer that are now on display at the Hania Municipal Gallery
It’s been some 50 years since Michalis Krasakis looked inside a wooden box at an antiques store in Cologne, Germany, described by the shopkeeper as containing “some stuff from Greece.” It is the moment that marked the beginning of a passion for art photography that evolved to the extent that Krasakis now boasts one of the biggest private collections of authentic and certified copies of works by Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari, known by her artistic name Nelly’s.
Kathimerini reached out to the Greek collector ahead of an exhibition of Nelly’s work at the Hania Municipal Gallery on Crete, to learn what happened after that day in Cologne.
“There were two black-and-white photographs of the Santorini volcano in that box, and as soon as I picked them up, I was enchanted. There was a signature in Latin script in pencil in the bottom right, reading Nelly’s, a name that meant absolutely nothing to me at the time,” says Krasakis.
He bought them nevertheless and only found out what a great discovery he had made a few days later from an acquaintance. Ever since, he has been actively looking for pieces by the Greek photographer – they were very hard to find at the time – and attending auctions abroad and in Greece, where he’d buy every original print he could find, regardless of subject.
As we now know, Sougioultzoglou (1899-1998) was not only a pioneer, she was also a prolific photographer who made her livelihood from her craft, so that her body of work ranges from travel photographs, newsy snapshots of current affairs and portraits of famous people at the time, to nudes, landscapes, antiquities, theater performances and moralistic tableaux.
“I am proud of my almost complete series of authentic prints of Nelly’s series of the Delphic Festivals, 22 gelatin silver prints in large formats and mint condition, which are being exhibited for the first time,” says Krasakis.
‘There were two black-and-white photographs of the Santorini volcano in that box, and as soon as I picked them up, I was enchanted’
Another one of his prized possessions that is being shown on Crete is a large-scale photograph from the wedding of heir-apparent Prince Paul of Greece to Princess Frederica of Hanover in Athens in January 1938, for the Proia newspaper, which published the photograph on its front page the very next day.
“Nelly’s photographic narrative is a fascinating journey back in time. Every one of her photographs is valuable for its own reasons and, despite the diversity of themes, they all bear the same stylistic signature. The photographs taken over so many decades, under completely different circumstances and in different parts of the world, were all taken by the same hand. No one else could have taken them. They are all Nelly’s,” says the collector in a note in the catalogue that accompanies the exhibition.
“We are not just talking about tasteful works of art; these are notable historical documents that capture significant moments, emotions and stories from the past. On the one hand, they represent the vision and creativity of the photographer and, on the other, they provide information about the social, historical and cultural context in which they were created,” notes the exhibition’s curator, artist Stella Kukulaki.
The pieces in “Nelly’s – The Krasakis Collection” are even more valuable due to the fact that they are all authentic.
As the collector himself explains, when the photographer was satisfied with a print from the negative, she signed it, stamped it on the back and put it in matting that contained her signature watermark.
The 150 frames on display at the Hania Municipal Gallery represent half of the Tina and Michalis Krasakis Collection.
They are arranged in three units across as many floors, starting at street level with Greek antiquities and moving up to Athenian society in the interwar years and then to a series of nude or semi-nude photographs taken of Russian dancer Elizaveta “Lila” Nikolska in 1929 and 1930 in various poses that caused a scandal in conservative Greek society at the time.
“Nelly’s – The Krasakis Collection” runs to November 10 at the Hania Municipal Gallery (98 Halidon), which is open Mondays to Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. and from 7 to 10 p.m.
