By Alexandra Koroxenidis - Kathimerini English Edition

The Hellenic American Union is organizing a photography exhibition that includes photographs of Greeks and other immigrants who were living in the United States early in the 20th century.

U.S. photographer Steefenie Wicks is the owner of this material. After years of searching for the identity of the artist, she discovered that it was Greek photographer Leon Pantoti who took these pictures of immigrants in his San Francisco studio between 1914 and 1922.

The exhibition has been curated by journalist Maria Koufopoulou.

In the late 1970s, homeless people and vagabonds sought refuge in a district south of San Francisco that was full of abandoned buildings. At night they would light bonfires to keep warm, and by the light of day they would poke around in piles of rubbish, along with the rag pickers, in the hope of finding something to sell.

John Malonas, a carpenter by trade but unemployed at that time, while rummaging in the small storeroom of a house that was about to be torn down, discovered some boxes full of glass plates that were photograph negatives. He was able to remove about 1000 pieces before the municipality demolished the house. Some of them he sold at bazaars, and the rest he kept to decorate the French doors he used to build – after removing the image.

In 1977, Steefenie Wicks’ husband met Malonas, who asked Steef for her opinion about the collection of glass plate negatives he had in his possession, since she was then taking courses in photography.

Steef showed the negatives to a friend of hers, a gallery owner. The assessment was that the negatives were special, but since nobody knew who the photographer was or the history behind them, their value could not be demonstrated.

In 1983, Malonas gave the entire collection of stuck-together and broken negatives to Steef, who had the feeling that she was once again inheriting a box of junk…

In 1998, she decided to develop some of these negatives. As the images were formed on the paper, Steef recognized the strength, humility and hope in the eyes of the subjects. After developing the entire collection, she decided to learn as much as she could about the photographer.

After five years or so of searching, she discovered that the photographer was a Greek from Achaia who had arrived in America on the steamship “Macedonia” in 1912. The name given to him on Ellis Island was Leon Pantoti, and he was accompanied by his wife, Urania. He opened a photography shop named “Photo Studio Patris” on 3rd St, in the heart of San Francisco’s Greek Town, where he took pictures of both Greeks and Americans between 1914 and 1922.

The photographs that will be presented at the Hellenic American Union have already been exhibited at the San Francisco City Hall and Public Library. During the latter exhibition, families were recognized who are still living in the area, all of whom were unaware of the existence of these pictures. The recognition of ancestors by their descendants has added emotional value to the social and historical value of these photographs.

Exhibition hours: Monday-Friday 12:00 – 21:00, Saturday 10:30-14:30, Closed Sunday.

http://www.hau.gr/hau/en/cult_new.html

Photographs of the earliest Greek Immigrants to the United States

A studio photographic portrait taken at the beginning of the 20th century may have no great interest to a contemporary viewer, unless the sitter is somebody recognizable and the picture is part of one’s personal memorabilia. But when a number of these photographs are put together, the effect, even to the most dispassionate viewer, can be quite moving. “Eyes of Hope,” an exhibit at the Hellenic-American Union that brings together a large number of photographic portraits depicting immigrants to the US (either Greek or other nationalities) from the beginning of the last century, greets the viewer with hundreds of faces looking out of sepia-tinted photographs. In this interesting “exchange” of gazes, those images of the past acquire contemporary relevance and the viewer is moved into thinking both about the human stories that lie behind the photos as well as the broader social and historical issues regarding immigration.

The images are part of a large photographic archive owned by American photographer Steefenie Wicks. The story of how she acquired those images is an interesting account of the kind of coincidences that assist in the preservation of historical documentation.

The story begins back in the 1970s when a carpenter by the name of John Malonas came across a box of glass negative photographic plates in a San Francisco building that was under demolition. Several years later, he met the husband of Steefenie Wicks and some years after that gave his entire collection to the American photographer. It was another 15 years before Wicks decided to print some of the negatives and began research to trace the original photographer. Five years on, she found out that the original photographer was a Greek immigrant who had arrived in the US in 1912 in the company of his wife Urania, passengers on a ship by the name of Macedonia. At Ellis Island, he was give the name Leon Pantoti. They settled in San Francisco and, at the heart of the city’s “Greek Town,” he opened a photographic studio with the name “Photo Studio Patris,” which operated from 1914-1922.

Before traveling to Greece, the exhibit “Eyes of Hope” was presented at the Municipal Library of San Francisco. It was a moving event in which several of the visitors actually recognized distant relatives in the pictures.

“Eyes of Hope,” at the Hellenic-American Union (22 Massalias, 210.368.0000), ends tonight.