Library at FIT – Art History Insider

Renewal of Symbols. Contemporary Minhwa Paintings – An Exhibition at FIT

By Kyunghee Pyun, Friday, August 20, 2022

The exhibition “Renewal of Symbols – Contemporary Minhwa Paintings” is on display at the FIT Gladys Marcus Library between August 25 and December 16, 2022. It highlights the art, legacy, and the creative process behind minhwa, a Korean folk painting tradition, which was particularly popular during the late Joseon dynasty period (1392–1893).

Composed of popular motifs such as flowers, birds, characters, and animals symbolizing longevity and prosperity, minhwa painters involved careful coloring on both recto and verso side of the paper, and even silk. The method was shared by professional painters at the court as well as in the provinces. Flower motifs, birds, and animals as well as luxurious objects of fantasy were commonly found in embroidery and clothing ornaments. The names of most of the artists are unknown today.

Fig. 1 *Aphrodisiac_29* (gold background, klein blue dish), 2019, 36×24 inch, ink, pigment and wash on mulberry paper. Seongmin Ahn. Courtesy of the Artist.

This exhibition of eight contemporary New York City based artists invites audiences to learn more about the laborious process behind minhwa. The displays feature underdrawings, pattern books, and completed works. In one case, the artist used previously created drawings. She then added hanji, mulberry bark paper on top of the drawing sheet and traced the outlines with a diluted (light grey) ink-dipped fine brush. Once the outlines became apparent, the artist added light hue color tones on the shapes and repeated the process called barim by adding layers of ink washes to adjust the hues, saturations, and values of colors. In some cases, light hues were applied on the verso side of the paper to create more vivid colors. After the pigments are applied on the recto side, the artist adds further dark outlines in color and brush.

The artists shown not only worked in these traditional patterns but also invented their own motifs. Transforming the folk painting tradition into contemporary art practice, familiar motifs such as peony flowers, ten symbols of longevity, and eight characters of Confucian tenets in minhwa painting resonate with the amplification of indexical messages entrenched in the visual symbols. Desire for a better career, a long life, a long-lasting marriage, and success and happiness are often seen vulgar, outlandish, or brassy. Artists and patrons of late Joseon minhwa painting involved the beneficiary of these works: their loved ones, friends, and families. Hope for a better world is still needed in the twenty-first century as more artists will find inspirations from Korean minhwa painting in years to come.

Fig. 2 *Interrelation* series 2015, 24”x18”, ink and color on mulberry paper.
Seongmin Ahn. Courtesy of the Artist.

In contemporary minhwa paintings, artists introduce new symbols. The 2022 Minhwa Creative Collective included four high school students who worked under the supervision of artist and teacher Seongmin Ahn, renewing and reinventing symbols meaningful for each person in their habitus. Ecological contexts of traditional motifs are significantly altered in recent decades due to global warming, air pollution, and a decreasing habitat for a number of species. Minhwa painting is continuously reinvented to address socio-political issues of our contemporary society. Seongmin Ahn’s begin AGAIN series continues the character-based lettering art and yet presents a new direction for minhwa as an idiom of contemporary art.

Artist Seongmin Ahn teaches at Queens College, City University of New York. She has mentored graduates from the Art History and Museum Professions Program (AHMP) at FIT and other students. Ahn’s public art project begin AGAIN is currently on view at John Jay College’s Anya and Andrew Shiva Gallery on Eleventh Avenue at 58 Street until August 26. Seongmin Ahn worked with students in a project called 2022 Minhwa Creative Collective. Hana Glanz, Rachel Kim, Yoon Lee, and Justin Pyun collaborated with Ahn to think about new symbols for contemporary minhwa in view of political ecology, sustainability, and environmental changes. Their research papers and idea sketches are also on display.

You are cordially invited to the opening reception of “Renewal of Symbols – Contemporary Minhwa Paintings” on Wednesday, September 14, 2022 at 4-6 pm at Gladys Marcus Library, Fashion Institute of Technology. Please RSVP to Jungmin Hur at jungmin_hur[at]fitnyc.edu by September 13, 2022.

Dr. Kyunghee Pyun is Associate Professor at the FIT History of Art Department, and a specialist in Asian and Asian American Art, as well as European Medieval Art. You can learn more about her work here.

On Time in Scrapbooks

By Alexander Nagel, Thursday, May 19, 2022

ΜΟΔΑ IS FASHION is the first entirely AHMP senior student class curated exhibition at the FIT Gladys Marcus Library on the State University of New York’s campus in downtown Manhattan. The Art History and Museum Professions program developed out of a Visual Arts Certificate program in the early 2000s. Today, many AHMP alumni are successful curators, archivists, educators, and writers.

Inspired by the many holdings related to Greece throughout the FIT campus collections, we began research for this exhibition in January 2022. It became quickly evident that there are actually so many exciting archives, materials and stories related to Greek speaking designers, Greek illustrators, Greek influencers and writers in our Museum at FIT and in our Special Collections and College Archives.

Pre-internet, physical photographs and illustrations were an easy and affordable way to circulate and share ideas and inspirations for young designers. Scrapbooks with postcards and photographs cut out from books and magazines were one way to appreciate and learn about other people and cultures around the world since collecting actual fashion designer’s work for the campus displays in a more organized way did not began in a more organized way until 1969. These early FIT Scrapbooks speak to us in understanding past methods of class-room education in Manhattan, as photographs and archives mattered then as they do today.

Fig. 1 Scrapbook by an unknown artist with a photograph cut out from the magazine *In Greece. Quarterly*. On display at ΜΟΔΑ IS FASHION in Spring and Summer 2022.

According to a handwritten note, the photograph in this scrapbook compiled by an FIT educator or designer in the 1960s is an illustration cut out a from a magazine In Greece. Quarterly, though no year is given. “Men dancing in traditional Greek costume” is the title of a photograph by Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari, better known as “Nelly” (1899–1998). Nelly’s photographs, especially those portraying people dancing, gained great popularity in the 1930s and later, and she inspired entire generations of photographers. Born in Aydin, now part of Turkey, and spending years in Athens in Greece and in Dresden in Germany, she first arrived in New York City in 1939 with an official mission to assist in overseeing parts of the decoration of the Greek pavilion for a World Fair in Queens.

This is when Nelly’s love affair with New York City began. Soon thereafter, she began photographing sites, people, and events in New York City. One series of photographs featured the New York Easter Parade, a tradition particularly important for Greeks. Nelly owned a Studio on 57th Street close to Central Park and lived in New York City for over 34 years before she died back in Athens in Greece in 1998. Many of her photographs, including some she shot in New York City, were later donated to the Benaki Museum in Athens, Greece. The photograph in the FIT scrapbook displayed connects us to the legacy of a photographer who is not uncontroversial today as is her influence and legacy as a photographer of inter-war Greece.

Fig. 2 Scrapbook Bialo Archive *Greece*. Scrapbook at the FIT Gladys Marcus Library.

Sometimes there are other stories that develop from engaging with a scrapbook collection and archives such as those housed at FIT. In some cases, the name of the person who compiled the scrapbook is even known. This is the case with a series of little scrapbooks compiled by artist Deirdre Bialo. One scrapbook contains sets of cut out photographs and postcards from Greece. It contains, among many other items a commercial postcard of the painting Οι Πρόσφυγες (“The Refugees”) by Greek artist Theodoros Rallis (1852–1909). Would it not be interesting to sometimes go back in time and listen to the conversations of those who painted, to those who later photographed, those who distributed the photographs and compiled these in scrapbooks?

Fig. 3 Postcard of the painting “The Refugees” by Greek painter Theodoros Rallis (1852–1909), included in the Bialo Archive Scrapbook *Greece* at the FIT Gladys Marcus Library.

Further Reading

Damaskos, Dimitris and Dimitris Plantzos, eds. 2008. A Singular Antiquity: Archaeology and Hellenic Identity in Twentieth-Century Greece (Athens, Benaki Museum), esp. “The Uses of Antiquity in Photographs by Nelly: Imported Modernism and Home-Grown Ancestor Worship in Inter-War Greece,” The full volume is accessible online here.

Degirmenci, Erol. 2022. “The Queen of Neoclassical Photography: Nelly.” Daily Art Magazine. March 27, 2022.

FioRito, Taylor, Allie Geiger and Clay Routledge. 2020. “Creative Nostalgia: Social and Psychological Benefits of Scrapbooking,” Journal of the American Art Therapy Association 38.2: 98–103.

Markessinis, Andreas. 2016. The Greek Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. Pelekys.

Vogeikoff-Brogan, Natalia. 2021. “The Transatlantic Voyage of a Greek Maiden,” From the Archivist’s Notebook Blog, April 17, 2021.

Zacharia, Katerina. 2015. “Nelly’s Iconography of Greece,” In Camera Graeca: Photographs, Narratives, Materialities, edited by Philip Carabott, Yannis Hamilakis and Eleni Papargyriou. London: Routledge: 233–56.

About the Author

Dr. Alex Nagel is Chair of the Art History and Museum Professions Program (AHMP). He recently contributed an essay on Greek archives and legacies at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. to the volume Legacies of Ancient Greece in Contemporary Perspectives, ed. by Thomas Gerry (Vernon Press, 2022, pp. 23–62). Learn more about his work here.

One Current Favorite Reading or Art Exhibition

Ariella Aïsha Azoulay. 2019. Potential History: Unlearning Imperialism. London: Verso Books.

On George Stavrinos (1948–1990)

By Richard Montañez, Sunday, March 20, 2022

This essay is written as an assignment for the AHMP senior class “Exhibitions” project ΜΟΔΑ IS FASHION. The exhibition is on display at the State University of New York’s FIT campus Gladys Marcus Library in Spring and Summer 2022.

Except for Brad Hamann’s Moonfall (2010), and a series of video interviews with his sisters, not too much has been written about the life and career of Greek American fashion illustrator George Stavrinos (1948–1990).

Stravrinos was born as the last of seven to parents who immigrated from Greece to near Boston in March 1948. Rising to great success in the 1970s and 80s, Stavrinos died of AIDS related complications in August 1990 at a hospital in New York City. Today, FIT’s Special Collections and College Archives (SPARC) houses some fourteen of his original illustrations. They entered SPARC through his friend, FIT Illustration Professor Rosemary Torre. Other original Stavrinos illustrations are kept at the Leslie Lohman Museum of Art in New York.

“My parents gave us a very European upbringing. …[…]… I went to Greek school after regular American school, where we were taught to read and write Greek …[…]… I served as an altar boy for seven years in the Greek Orthodox Church.” (Stavrinos, in an interview with Nathan Fain, 1978).

Well known in the world of commercial fashion illustration, Stavrinos produced works for the likes of Bergdorf Goodman, Barney’s, and The New York Times. He also crafted illustrations for Gentlemen Quarterly and Blueboy, referencing classic images of gay American erotica and lifestyle, often through representations of archetypal masculinity and handsomeness. Stavrinos visited relatives in Heraklion in Crete on at least one occasion in 1969 and 1970 before he moved permanently to New York City in 1973. Throughout his career, Stavrinos produced illustrations for magazines that were marketed toward gay men, openly referencing his own sexuality in a time of intense discrimination against LGBTQ+ people.

Figs. 1 and 2. Figure in suit by Charlotte Neuville: suit jacket has four square buttons, For Lord & Taylor, Signed, 1989. Stavrinos, George, “Charlotte Neuville Suit,” *SPARC Digital*, accessed March 20, 2022. Archaic Kouros from Greece, c. 590-580 BCE, marble from Naxos. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1932 (32.11.1). The exact circumstances of the modern discovery of the kouros are unknown. It was owned by the German collector Jacob Hirsch (1874–1955) and has traces of original paint.

The illustration that I chose from his oeuvre is of a figure in a Charlotte Neuville suit, particularly because it is so androgynous in appearance. The illustration is from 1989 and was created only a few months before his death. The work is a testament to Stavrinos’ ability to confidently navigate different kinds of fashion and advertising spaces and their attitudes toward queerness or mixed gender expression. Not only does the figure emulate queerness through the garment they are wearing, but they also are sporting a non-conformist hairstyle which pushes this narrative further. This is particularly interesting when considering ideas about masculinity and homosexuality that can be traced all the way back to ancient Greece, a prominent part of Stavrinos’ heritage.

In his illustrations of both men and women, he utilized sources of inspiration such as Minoan, Archaic and Classical Greek sculptures and standards of beauty, which, at least for men, have been reproduced, reused, and recoded into gay culture for as long as homosexuality has existed. To my mind come the many surviving statues of Kouroi (young men), excavated in Greece and now on display in the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. One can almost imagine Stavrinos, who lived in a studio on a top floor corner apartment on 76 West 86th Street near Manhattan’s Central Park for many years, walking to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to draw the Greek kouros on display here since 1931.

Fig. 3 Stavrinos, third from the right, with friends in 1978. From Nathan Fain, “George Stavrinos, Illustrator,” *Christopher Street,* November 1978, 16–25. FIT Library, Fashion File-Illustrators – Folder Stavrinos, George.

Stavrinos’ images, particularly in erotica, can often depict displays of power, dominance, and in certain cases, invitation, which can change depending on the viewer and their own perception or fantasy of the image of the model. In this case, with a more femme-presenting figure, it becomes especially clear that they are purposely constructed to be more stoic or solid in appearance to emulate a certain kind of masculinity within women.

In 21st century contexts, we now have a clear understanding that menswear or references to menswear are not automatically indicative of power and agency within anyone, but Stavrinos’ illustrations exude timelessness regardless. In considering what were more personal aspects about his life and why he drew the subjects that he did, the subtle choices that were made in his commercial works are reminders of the influence queer life had on him during his lifetime and how they inspired him to continue working.

Fig. 4 The author with the Stavrinos illustration set in FIT’s SPARC in March 2022.

Acknowledgments

I am grateful to April Callahan, Curator of Manuscript Collections and Associate at the Special Collections and Archives (SPARC), Gladys Marcus Library at FIT, who facilitated access to the original drawings of Stavrinos.

Further Reading

Hamann, Brad. 2010. Moonfall. The Life and Art of George Stavrinos. Based on the author’s M.F.A. Visual Arts Graphic Design thesis at Marywood University.

Fain, Nathan. 1978. “George Stavrinos, Illustrator,” Christopher Street, November 1978, 16–25.

Kaltsas, Nikos. 2002. Sculpture in the National Archaeological Museum, Athens. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.

Richter, Gisela and Irma Richter. 1936. “The Archaic ‘Apollo’ in the Metropolitan Museum.” Metropolitan Museum Studies, 5 (1934–1936), 20–57.

Stavrinos. Clarity of Vision. Stavrinos’ sisters Venetia, Sandra and Debbie talk about the love and admiration they had for their brother (the video is accessible on youtube here).

About the Author

Richard Montañez is a senior in the AHMP program at FIT. His interests include queer art history, the decolonization of museums, and curatorial artists.

Current Favorite Reading or Art Exhibition

“Faith Ringgold: American People” The New Museum, New York City, February 17, 2022 to June 5, 2022.

On Despina Messinesi (1911–2003)

By Frida Loyola, Sunday, March 20, 2022

A type written letter with her hand written signature, sent by Despina Messinesi (1911–2003) to Thomas Drew at the Galleries at FIT on March 23, 1975, is preserved in accession files with The Museum of FIT. The letter informed Drew about the original whereabouts of the ensembles she had just donated. These ensembles included a New Look 1951 dress by Christian Dior and a 1955 Jean Dessès chiffon.

Fig. 1 Evening dress, Christian Dior 1951. Gift of Despina Messinesi, The Museum at FIT 75.86.5.

Like something out of an Audrey Hepburn movie. (Stephen Miller 2003).

From a 2003 obituary and other archival documents preserved, we learn that she was born as Despina Georgia Plakias to Greek immigrants from Ioannina in a suburb of Boston in 1911. She lost her father at the age of 11.

Fig. 2 Despina Plakias, then 18 years, as Monsieur Beaucaire in the Senior Play of the 1929 class, on the left. “Despina and Doris stand together; German Play,” June 1929, *Abbot Collections*, accessed March 20, 2022.

An early photograph shows the 18 year old Despina dressed up as Monsieur Beaucaire for a student theater play at Abbot Academy in Andover, MA. Based on a 1900 novel, the novel gained new fame in a silent movie with Rudolph Valentino in 1924 which in turn served as the inspiration for the play. The Andover Townsman from June 7, 1929 described Despina’s performance as “outstanding …[…]… With charm of voice, expression and manner, her Beaucaire dominated every situation with a simple, easy grace.”

In the same summer of 1929, Despina traveled to Greece, visiting her grandmother. Here she met her future husband, the wealthy Greek shipping magnate Miltiades Leon Messinesi (born 1895), and got married. Messinesi’s father was a former General Consul in London. According to a news feature submitted by Despina’s brother John Plakias to the New York Times in 1931 she began living in Athens in Greece around the same time. During these years, she continued to travel and began to work as a fashion reporter in Paris.

As Artemis Leontis has shown in her brilliant biography of the American Hellenophile Eva Palmer Sikelianos (1874–1952), the 1930s brought a new wave of great interest in Greek fashion to New York City. The city was excited about Greek fashion. Thanks to a friendship with curator Gisela Richter, the Metropolitan Museum of Art featured an exhibition on Palmer Sikelianos’ fashion creations in the summer of 1937, and two years later the Greek government lent a number of original ancient Greek sculptures to the World’s Fair in Queens in New York City.

During all these years, Despina “Madam Milto Messinesi” traveled back and forth between Athens, London, Paris and New York. She moved back more permanently to New York City in 1941, and began to work for Vogue shortly thereafter. A funny story relates to her first day at work in April 1941 and was described by the biographer of her obituary as follows:

Hired at $25 a week, she actually took off her first day of work in order to run a publicity stunt for Greek war relief, leading a herd of flower-bedecked donkeys through New York’s streets and to the Ritz. Coming into the Vogue offices the next morning, she was surprised to find that everyone seemed to know her already. Then she learned why: A half-page photo of her hugging a donkey had appeared in that morning’s paper.

Photographs from the event at the Ritz Carlton Hotel are preserved. I was able to identify and read most of her Vogue articles and collected information on the dresses she donated to the FIT Galleries. In her own voice she introduces herself as a “little shop-hound, size 10,” to the Vogue readers in April 1944.

Over the next decades, she became Vogue‘s main fashion editor, traveling places far and wide. During these decades, she became known for her sense of elegance. Ensembles owned by The Museum at FIT today including the black dress 77.17.3, possibly by fellow Greek diaspora designer Jean Dessès, a silk satin with polychrome ribbon, silk floss embroidery, and rhinestones by Christian Dior 1951 (75.86.5), or dress 81.232.1 by Christian Dior New York 1954 were part of her fashionable wardrobe, and made her indeed appear like out of an Audrey Hepburn movie.

Fig. 3 Despina Messinesi modeling and writing. From *Vogue*, April 15, 1944, vol 103 (8), pp. 80-81. A copy of the volume owned by the FIT periodicals collection is on display in the exhibition.

Vogue featured her work on the royal Greek family, and several travel stories, sometimes from Greece, are part of her oeuvre. Today, The Museum at FIT and The Metropolitan Museum of Art house Messinesi’s donations. Her dresses are as diverse as fascinating and include a pair of American underwear pants from 1916, a fine woolen dress by French fashion designer Emanuel Ungaro (1933–2017) from the late 1960s and others. The voice of her writings for Vogue remains in FIT’s Library periodical collections. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Further Reading

Leontis, Artemis. 2019. Eva Palmer Sikelianos: A Life in Ruins. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Miller, Stephen. 2003. Despina Messinesi, Long Time Editor at Vogue, 92. Obituary, July 2003.

O’Shea Borrelli, Laird. 1997. “Dressing Up and Talking about It: Fashion Writing in Vogue from 1968 to 1993,” Fashion Theory 1.3 (1997), 247–59.

About the Author

Frida Loyola enrolled in the AHMP program after attending the Pink symposium in 2018 at the Museum at FIT. She plans to blend her design experience with Museum Studies and work as a Fashion Historian.

Current Favorite Reading or Art Exhibition

One of my favorite, and recent, exhibitions was The Salem Witch Trials: Reckoning and Reclaiming at the Peabody Essex Museum. The trials serve as an example of injustice and intolerance in our country’s history and remind us that history can indeed repeat itself.

ΜΟΔΑ IS FASHION: An Introduction

ΜΟΔΑ IS FASHION opens on Monday March 21 at the FIT Gladys Marcus Library.

Written by Alex Nagel, Sunday, March 20, 2022

Beginning this week, the State University of New York’s FIT will be celebrating Greek-American Heritage Month with an exhibition curated by the Senior AHMP Seminar class of 2022.

Students in the AHMP Senior class prepared exciting essays about the legacies of Greek fashion designers, writers and illustrators at SUNY FIT in New York City. Donations and archives of individuals such as Despina Messinesi (1911–2003), George Stavropoulos (1920–1990), James Galanos (1924–2016), George Stavrinos (1948–1990), and others are at The Museum at FIT and at the Special Collections and College Archives (SPARC). A Greek translation of this introduction, kindly provided by AHMP Senior student Chrysa Tasioula, follows below.

Many of those introduced here were born in America, traveled or lived in Greece for some time. All were inspired by ancient motifs or referenced ancient monuments throughout their careers which we hope to introduce here. Essays written by the students will shine a light on some of these creatives and their legacies at FIT and in New York City. Thank you for reading our essays! Thank you for visiting the exhibition! Σας ευχαριστώ που διαβάσατε την ελληνική μετάφραση πιο κάτω!

Looking closer, one finds that there are many Greek treasures in the Museum, Archives and Library at FIT. Take, for a start, the elegant wardrobe and fashion ensembles by Despina “Depy” Messinesi (1911–2003). Working for over 52 years at Vogue, she donated gowns and accessories to SUNY’s Manhattan campus at FIT. ΜΟΔΑ IS FASHION also features facsimiles of original illustrations by fashion illustrator George Stavrinos (1948–1990). Posthumously honored with a Society of Illustrators Award in 2007, FIT’s SPARC owns original illustrations, and an illustration from 1980 is on the ΜΟΔΑ IS FASHION exhibition poster.

When Alexandros Rizos Rangavis (1809–1892), the first official Greek ambassador to Washington, D.C., visited New York City in 1867, he was impressed by the New Yorkers. He singled out the broad streets, Central Park and the holdings of the New York Historical Society. While he returned to Athens, many Greeks began immigrating and settling in New York. Today, the largest population of Greeks in New York City lives in Astoria in Queens. Since 1998, a copy of the so-called Piraeus Athena is standing in Athens Square Park as a gift from Athenians to New Yorkers.

We are indebted to the Gladys Marcus Library at FIT colleagues and staff who were so kind to lent us exhibition space. We owe particular thanks to Greta Earnest, James Ferguson and the Library Exhibitions Committee.

Thank you to all the staff at the Special Collections and College Archives (SPARC) team, the Library at FIT, our colleagues at The Museum at FIT, and the Office of the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences at FIT and the FIT Diversity Collective, in particular Karen Trivette, April Callahan, Nanja Andriananjason, Eileen Flannigan, Gabriella Bucciarelli, Helen Lane, Sonia Dingilian and Melissa Marra-Alvarez.

Support came from Justine De Young, History of Art, Mary Tsujimoto and Patrick Knisley, FIT’s Dean of the Liberal Arts and Sciences Division. We also are grateful for the help with the translations, kindly provided by AHMP student Chrysa Tasioula.

The AHMP Senior Exhibitions class curators include Liana Arkay, Matthew Balcom, Sophie Benzakein, Nadine Hauser, Ivette Hodnovich, John Paul Jang, Zoe Klipstein, Frida Loyola, Richard Montañez, Vanessa Munoz, Tessa Norton, Stephanie O’Donnell, Natalia Orestis, Katherine Prior and Abigail Rodriguez.

ΜΟΔΑ IS FASHION is on display at the FIT Gladys Marcus Library, on 227 West 27th Street in New York City in Spring and Summer 2022.

Further Reading

The First Greek Ambassador to the American Federation 1867–1868. From the Memoirs of Alexandros Rizos Rangavis. Translated by Christine Gabrielides. Nostos Books, 2019.

Hamilakis, Yannis. 2007. The Nation and its Ruins. Antiquity, Archaeology, and National Imagination in Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Moskos, Charles. 1990. Greek Americans: Struggle and Success. New Brunswick: Transaction.

Rozeas, Christina. 2012. Greeks in Queens. Charleston: Arcadia.

Saridakis, Nikos. 2019. Greek Fashion – 100 Inspirational and Creative Years. Exhibition Catalog. Nafplion: Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation [in Greek].

Xenides, John. 1922. The Greeks in America. New York: Doran & Co.

The Modern Greek Studies Association holds events and publishes regularly about Greeks in America.

Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 1983ff.

The Journal of Modern Hellenism, 1984ff.

The Greek Cultural Center of New York is operating since the 1970s in Astoria, Queens.

The translation below was kindly provided by Chrysa Tasioula, Art History and Museum Professions’ 2022.

Τιμώντας τον μήνα Ελληνοαμερικανικής Κληρονομιάς, το ΜΟΔΑ IS FASHION εγκαινιάζεται τη Δευτέρα 21 Μαρτίου στη Βιβλιοθήκη Gladys Marcus, Shirley Goodman Resources Center, FIT.

Απο αυτή την εβδομάδα, το FIT θα γιορτάζει τον Μήνα της Ελληνοαμερικανικής Κληρονομιάς με μια έκθεση που επιμελείται η τάξη Senior AHMP Seminar του 2022. Οι μαθητές ενασχολούνται με την κληρονομιά Ελλήνων σχεδιαστών μόδας, συγγραφέων και εικονογράφων όπως ο Γιώργος Σταυρόπουλος (1920–1990), η Δέσποινα Μεσσήνη (1911–2003), Τζέιμς Γαλανός (1924–2016), Γιώργος Σταυρινός (1948–1990) μεταξύ άλλων, στο Μουσείο του FIT και στις Ειδικές Συλλογές και Αρχεία Κολλεγίων (SPARC) που στεγάζονται στη Βιβλιοθήκη Gladys Marcus. Πολλοί από αυτούς που παρουσιάστηκαν εδώ γεννήθηκαν στην Αμερική, ταξίδεψαν ή έζησαν για λίγο στην Ελλάδα. Ωστόσο, όλοι τους εμπνεύστηκαν από αρχαία μοτίβα ή ανακάλεσαν αρχαία μνημεία κατά τη διάρκεια της καριέρας τους, τα οποία ελπίζουμε να παρουσιάσουμε εδώ. Κάθε Δευτέρα, τρεις νέες εκθέσεις τις οποίες γράφουν οι μαθητές θα ρίχνουν φως σε μερικούς από αυτούς τους καλλιτέχνες και την παρακαταθήκη τους στο FIT και στη Νέα Υόρκη. Σας ευχαριστούμε που διαβάζετε τις εκθέσεις μας! Σας ευχαριστούμε που επισκεφθήκατε την έκθεση!

Αν κοιτάξει κανείς πιο προσεκτικά, διαπιστώνει ότι υπάρχουν πολλοί ελληνικοί θησαυροί στο Μουσείο, τα Αρχεία και τη Βιβλιοθήκη του FIT. Πάρτε, για αρχή, τα κληροδοτήματα της Δέσποινας «Ντέπυ» Μεσσηνή (1911–2003), η οποία εργάστηκε για 52 χρόνια στη Vogue και δώρισε μέρη της κομψής γκαρνταρόμπας και των συνόλων μόδας της στις γκαλερί FIT. Στο ΜΟΔΑ IS FASHION συμμετέχει επίσης ο Γιώργος Σταυρινός (1948–1990) ο οποίος εργάστηκε ως εικονογράφος σε μεγάλες εκδόσεις μόδας και το 2007 τιμήθηκε με το Society of Illustrators Award. Σήμερα, η SPARC της FIT διαθέτει μια αξιόλογη συλλογή πρωτότυπων εικονογραφήσεων και μια εικονογράφηση από το 1980 βρίσκεται στο εξώφυλλο της έκθεσης. Ωστόσο, ακόμη, εκτός από μια κολακευτική και σημαντική βιογραφία που συντάχθηκε το 2010, ελάχιστα δημοσιεύονται γύρω από τις ιστορίες της τέχνης και στο πλαίσιο της αξιοσημείωτης συλλογής εικονογραφήσεων.

Όταν ο Αλέξανδρος Ρίζος Ρανγκαβής (1809–1892), ο πρώτος επίσημος Έλληνας πρεσβευτής στην Washington, D.C., επισκέφθηκε τη Νέα Υόρκη το 1867, εντυπωσιάστηκε από τους Νεορκέζους. Ξεχώρισε τους μεγάλους δρόμους, το Σέντραλ Παρκ και τις εταιρείες της Ιστορικής Εταιρείας της Νέας Υόρκης. Ενώ επέστρεψε στην Αθήνα, πολλοί Έλληνες άρχισαν να μεταναστεύουν και να εγκαθίστανται στη Νέα Υόρκη. Στη μονογραφία του, Οι Έλληνες στην Αμερική (1922), ο John Xenides περιέγραψε ήδη 80 ή 90 Ελληνικές Εταιρείες στη Νέα Υόρκη στις αρχές της δεκαετίας του 1920.

Σήμερα, ο μεγαλύτερος πληθυσμός Ελλήνων στη Νέα Υόρκη ζει στην Astoria, Queens. Από το 1998, ένα αντίτυπο της λεγόμενης Πειραιώς Αθηνάς στέκεται στο Athens Square Park ως δώρο των Αθηναίων στους Νεορκέζους. Στις γκαλερί του The Met, οι μαθητές του FIT, διάβασαν Κωνσταντίνο Καβάφη μπροστά από μια αρχαία ελληνική ταφόπλακα.