Page 31 - MYCONIAN COLLECTION MAGAZINE 2025

MOODBO ARD

The waves of the Aegean have flowed with the magic of myth. The deep blue of the sea channels the past to the present of the Cycladic archipelago.

From far left: Jean Seberg, icon of French New Wave cinema, captured in Mykonos, 1968.
Carefree dancers at Platis Gialos beach, Mykonos, 1975.
Princess Soraya with the island’s famed pelican, Mykonos, 1960.

Before Mykonos became a byword for opulence, it was a secret—whispered by the wind, kissed by the
sun, carved in stone. From 1959 to 1979, Christos Poulidis, son of Greece’s first photojournalist, stood as
the island’s lone visual poet, capturing two decades that shimmer between myth and memory. His lens
didn’t just record history—it curated allure. In his hands, Mykonos was effortless elegance. Golden light,
linen shirts, bare feet on marble steps. He chronicled the island's awakening with instinct and persistence,
sending images and dispatches to Greek and international press—crafting, image by image, the myth Copyright © George Poulidis | Representation & Rights: www.cosmosarte.gr
B that would one day crown Mykonos as the flagship of Greek tourism and one of the world’s most iconic CHRISTOS POULIDIS (1936–2000)
destinations. This was an era of divine contradictions: barefoot children darting through whitewashed Son of Petros Poulidis — Greece’s first photojournalist and
alleys as Jackie O. disembarked in silk; fishermen laughing beside their boats while Onassis and Callas founder of the historic Poulidis Photographic Archive — Christos
dined above the Aegean dusk. Poulidis saw it all—not as spectacle, but as harmony. The raw and the regal, inherited both the eye and the instinct for capturing history.
the salt of the earth and the stardust, dancing on the same marble stage. His 25,000 unpublished negatives From the heart of Athens to the rising glamour of Mykonos, he
are more than memory—they are the mirror of a nation in motion. Mykonos and Delos emerge not just as chronicled a changing Greece with elegance, precision, and
islands, but as a distilled version of Greece’s explosive postwar transformation, with all its beauty, promise, timeless sensitivity. His lens gave shape to a nation becoming
and quiet loss. Poulidis didn’t just witness the rise. He gave it form, and light. modern — and to an island becoming legend.

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