Tsirgialou Aliki, Nelly's, Franz Fiedler, Angelos Seraidaris and the Unknown Story of a Photograph
The Benaki Museum Photographic Archives, since 1984, hold the oeuvre of the Greek photographer Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari (1899-1998), better known as Nelly's. Recent archival work and extensive research in preparation of her retrospective exhibition and its accompanying catalogue have uncovered details of her life and career that were unknown to this day. Having concluded her photographic studies in Dresden, initially with Hugo Erfurth and subsequently with the young Franz Fiedler, Nelly settled in Athens in 1924 where she opened her photographic practice on Ermou street. It appears that after leaving Germany she continued to maintain a close relationship with Fiedler, who often offered his advice and support throughout her carrier. Fiedler visited Greece in 1928, touring the Peloponnese and travelling to Crete. The photographs he used to illustrate his article "Photographische Wanderfahrt in Hellas", published a year later in Deutscher Kamera Almanach, reveal a certain resemblance with the depictions Nelly took during her first tour of the Greek countryside; it is as if they stood next to each other while photographing the villages and monasteries up in the mountains of the Peloponnese, the port of Patras and the archaeological site of Olympia. Furthermore, they turned their lens towards the same figures treating them exactly as they would have done if they had been working in the studio; they placed 332 their models in front of neutral backgrounds, isolating them from the surrounding details and depicted them by projecting their strong facial features. The portraits of the nuns and monks, the elderly men of Tripoli and the young Cretans therefore stand out as photographic studies of character. For the first time, the study of their images draws the attention co the portrait of a young monk that they both depicted. In her archive, this image was accredited to her husband Angelos and more specifically with the work he undertook on Mount Athos in 1935. The photograph was handed by Nelly herself to the editors of the catalogue Angelos Seraidaris, Photographic Itinerary on Mount Athos, 1935, which was published only three years after his death by the Mount Athos Photographic Archive and the Benaki Museum. However, the synthesis of the image stands out of the general approach of Seraidaris who offers a more distant view of the Athonite monks; seen next to the depictions taken by Nelly and Fiedler in the Peloponnese, this specific image leaves no doubt that it was taken by his wife while she toured in that region with the company of her teacher. The answer to the question concerning the paternity of this portrait derived ultimately due to its publication, five years before Seraidaris's visit to the Athos peninsula, in the volume American Annual of Photography 1930.
