Voula Papaioannou

Voula Papaïoannou (1898–1990) was a Greek photographer, known for her photography of Greece, its people and its landscape.

Biography Papaïoannou was born in Lamia, Greece, but grew up in Athens. She studied at the Polytechnic University of Athens and developed an interest in photography. With the outbreak of World War II, she took up documentary photography and began to photograph and document social subjects during the duration of the German and Italian occupation of Greece.

After the liberation, Papaïoannou became a member of the photographic unit of the UNRRA (United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration), touring the Greek countryside recording the hard conditions of rural life. Papaïoannou's attention toward the hardships of the Greek population was not in the least romantic or touristic, but instead honestly portrayed them as proud and independent, optimistic for the future despite poverty.

Photography Papaïoannou worked in the social documentarian tradition of photography. Her work reflects the dominant representational paradigm of 'humanist photography' prominent in postwar Europe. Her work was widely printed in the photographic press, and was published in book form through the Swiss publisher La Guilde du Livre in the 1950s.

Books 1953. La Grèce : à ciel ouvert (Lausanne: La Guilde du Livre), in French. . 1956. Iles Grecques (Lausanne: La Guilde du Livre), in French. .