The Benaki Museum presents a unique photographic exhibition entitled “Nelly’s: Interwar Santorini”, which will be hosted at the Castellana Center of Photography, in Pyrgos Santorini, from August 10 to October 20, 2025. The exhibition takes visitors on a journey to Santorini in the 1920s and 1930s, capturing the island in an era before the radical transformations brought by the 20th century.
Through the lens of the famous Greek photographer Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari, known as Nelly’s, the images reveal the authentic architecture of the settlements, the volcanic topographies and the daily lives of the inhabitants. Her photographs, taken between 1928 and 1930, constitute a valuable historical and artistic document of a Santorini that was lost after the devastating earthquake of 1956.
The exhibition, curated by Aliki Tsirgialou, Head of Photographic Archives at the Benaki Museum, and Tonia Nousia, architect and museologist, sheds light on the work of a photographer who marked Greek artistic photography of the interwar period. Nelly’s, born in 1899 in Aydiniou, Asia Minor, studied in Germany and settled in Greece in 1924, highlighting landscapes, people and monuments through her lens in a way that defined the international image of Greece. In 1984, she donated her entire photographic archive to the Benaki Museum, offering a priceless piece of our cultural heritage.
Nelly’s “Interwar Santorini” is not only a testimony to the island’s past, but also an aesthetic experience that highlights the interaction of place, people and light. The exhibition promises to move the audience, combining artistic photography with the lively narration of the history of a place that is today one of the most emblematic tourist destinations in the world.
