Voula Papaïoannou (1898–1990) was a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

photographer, known for her photography of Greece, its people and its landscape.

Biography

Papaïoannou was born in

Lamia LaMia Corporation S.R.L., operating as LaMia (short for ''Línea Aérea Mérida Internacional de Aviación''), was a Bolivian charter airline headquartered in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, as an EcoJet subsidiary. It had its origins from the failed ...

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders with ...

, but grew up in

Athens Athens ( ; el, Αθήνα, Athína ; grc, Ἀθῆναι, Athênai (pl.) ) is both the capital and largest city of Greece. With a population close to four million, it is also the seventh largest city in the European Union. Athens dominates ...

. She studied at the Polytechnic University of Athens and developed an interest in photography. With the outbreak of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, she took up

documentary photography Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle events or environments both significant and relevant to history and historical events as well as everyday life. It is typically undertaken as professional pho ...

and began to photograph and document social subjects during the duration of the German and Italian occupation of Greece. She turned her camera to troops departing for the front line, and to the casualties of war, raising awareness of the various humanitarian issues such as the Great Famine which arose out of the occupation. As Athens suffered a starvation crisis, Papaïoannou photographed emaciated children, providing an account of the horrors of war on the civilian population. After the liberation, Papaïoannou became a member of the photographic unit of the

UNRRA United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was an international relief agency, largely dominated by the United States but representing 44 nations. Founded in November 1943, it was dissolved in September 1948. it became part o ...

(United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration), touring the Greek countryside recording the hard conditions of rural life. Papaïoannou's attention toward the hardships of the Greek population was not in the least romantic or touristic, but instead honestly portrayed them as proud and independent, optimistic for the future despite poverty.

Photography

Papaïoannou worked in the social documentarian tradition of photography. Her work reflects the dominant representational paradigm of '

humanist photography Humanist Photography, also known as the School of Humanist Photography,Chalifour, Bruno, 'Jean Dieuzaide, 1935-2003' in ''Afterimage'' Vol. 31, No. 4, January–February 2004 manifests the Enlightenment philosophical system in social documentary pr ...

' prominent in postwar Europe.Voula Papaioannou Cabinet
/ref> Her work was widely printed in the photographic press, and was published in book form through the Swiss publisher La Guilde du Livre in the 1950s.

Books

* 1953. ''La Grèce : à ciel ouvert'' (Lausanne: La Guilde du Livre), in French. . * 1956. ''Iles Grecques'' (Lausanne: La Guilde du Livre), in French. .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Papaioannou, Voula 1898 births 1990 deaths Greek photographers Greek women photographers Artists from Athens