Dodecanese islands. A young boy on the bow of a venerable caique operated by his father. Robert A. McCabe, 1954.
Photography exhibition at the European Cultural Centre of Delphi
Robert A. McCabe, “Greece after the War. Years of hope”
Duration: June 10 – October 15, 2023
Opening: Saturday 10 June, 2023, at 20:30
Programme
18:30 | Roundtable on “The postwar Greece of Robert A. McCabe”
Opening Remarks
Panagiotis Roilos, President of the European Cultural Centre of Delphi, Professor at Harvard University.
Speakers
Robert A. McCabe, photographer.
Euphrosyne Doxiadis, artist and writer.
Kostas Kostis, Professor of History at the University of Athens.
Katerina Liberopoulou, journalist.
Athanassia Psalti, Director, Ephorate of Antiquities of Phocis and member of the ECCD Governing Board.
20:30 | Exhibition Opening
A few words by Robert A. McCabe:
My first visit to Greece was in the summer of 1954. Ten years had passed since the end of the Nazi occupation of Greece and five years since the end of the Civil War. The Nazi occupation had brought unspeakable horrors to Greece, and reconstruction efforts were then delayed by the Civil War. The Greece I first saw was characterized by extreme poverty. It was visible everywhere. Often when one discussed with a Greek the beauty of his country it would be followed by a “yes, but very poor”, and he would illustrate the point by rubbing his thumb and forefinger together.
…..But I had no idea how quickly Greece would progress and transform itself. I am truly happy to have been able to help record and document this extremely important period of Greece’s modern history.”
A few words by the ECCD President, Professor Panagiotis Roilos:
“Many of Robert McCabe’s captivating photographs (taken in several parts of Greece from the mid-1950s up to the late 1960s) allow glimpses into instantiations of dialectics between different moments in Greek history and culture as preserved in postwar Greece.”
A few words by the journalist Katerina Liberopoulou:
“Robert McCabe’s black and white photograph of the marble worker intent on his task at the Herodion brings to us a vital image of the years of this ‘opening up’, this turning point, the transitional phase between a period of horrendous hardships which was waning, and a new and optimistic time of reconstruction which was dawning.”
