Photographing Hellenism

the Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies Photographic Collection 1870s-1960s

Harlan, Deborah

Photographing Hellenism explores a collection of photographs assembled between the late 19th century and the 1960s by the London-based Society for the Promotion of Hellenic Studies. The collection functioned as a repository of photographs from the Hellenic World in the form of negatives, prints and lantern slides. The collection ceased to function in the mid-20th century, becoming an archive of material objects that was eventually dispersed to a number of institutions in Athens and Rome. Using visualising methodologies, this study looks at the nexus between photographs (both as objects and images), photographic collections, and the archive. It takes into account personal and cultural actions of the photographers, donors, and consumers involved in order to explore the evolving concept of Hellenism reflected in the images. During its active lifetime, the images in the collection were treated as empirical data, embedding telltale signs of how the Hellenic world was conceived. By understanding their object biographies and their socio-historical context, it is possible to demonstrate how the images encapsulate various stages of that evolving conception. In the present, their reception focuses on culturally determined re-interpretations, benefitting from access to photographic archives through digitisation.