In 1927, photos stirred up a storm of controversy among historians and archaeologists in Athens.
The Greek photographer Elli Souyoultzoglou-Seraidari or Nelly (1899-1998) photographed the nude dancer Mona Palva on the Acropolis. However, the Acropolis had been the subject of (civil) war, plunder, neglect and other blasphemy for many centuries.
The Acropolis has been a fortified site since 1250 B.C. From the sixth century onwards, the main temple was the Pantheon, dedicated to the goddess Athena, honoured by an enormous statue. A woman on the Acropolis was not unusual, but Athena was dressed as a goddess after all.
It was the first time the Acropolis, the Greek symbol of independence and a glorious past, was shown in the company of a naked mortal woman, even a dancer.
Nelly was born in Aidini, Asia Minor, and came to Greece in 1924, after studying in Germany. Throughout her life, she held a passion for photographs of (Greek) refugees and classical monuments. Her photo of Mona Pavla, a Russian refugee, and the Acropolis combined both.
Her photos also show the Acropolis in a rudimentary or authentic state, without major renovations. In 1925-1929, she made a series of photographs of ancient Athens, and these pictures are monuments in their own right.
Nelly was also a photographer at the Olympic Games in Berlin (1936), and New York, the city she inhabited after the war. She is now regarded as Greece’s national photographer, and her ‘sins’ of 1927 have been forgiven.
(Source: Benaki Museum, Athens).