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In this episode of the Benaki Museum’s CLOSE UPS video series, Aliki Tsirgialou, head of the Museum’s Photographic Archives, presents the notable Greek photographer Elli Souyioultzoglou-Seraidari – better known as Nelly – through images ranking her as one of the interwar period’s leading dance photographers.

Nelly was born in Asia Minor’s Aidini (now Aydın) in 1899. She studied photography in Germany under Hugo Erfurth and Franz Fiedler from 1920-21, before the 1922 expulsion of Greeks from Asia Minor by the Turks.

In 1924, she came to Greece, where she photographed important personalities of the time, including, as elaborated upon in the video, images of famous Opéra Comique ballerina Mona Païva, dancing nude at the Acropolis.

The Benaki Museum’s CLOSE UPS series presents the unique histories and people behind the works housed in its various collections.

View the original video here.

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