Greek Revival is a neoclassical architectural style which emerged in the US during the mid-19th century. It visually embraced the idea of the United States as the inheritor of ancient Greek democracy. But Greek Revival might also refer to the modern Hellenic Republic. It emerged in 1822 as Greeks fought for their independence from the Ottoman Empire. As Americans crafted classical columns for their buildings, Greeks lived through a tumultuous century of wars and treaties that established the borders and peoples of their republic once and for all by the 1920s.
In this series, I pair my own work with black and white photographs taken at roughly the same time that the buildings in the color photographs were built. Four of the older photographs are by celebrated Swiss artist Frederic Boissonnas. The attribution of the other four is unknown.
