Georgios Katsagelos

Portraits of Women

Georgios Katsagelos photography is on the subject of female presence with an emphasis on the difficulty they often experience in a male-dominated world. This subject has occupied him for more than three decades. He has photographed, for this purpose, on four continents, in more than twenty countries as well as in his homeland Greece. The photographs include women in their workplaces, on the street or in their homes, but also immigrant women as well as those hosted in all kinds of institutions. What characterizes these photographs is that although the social class they belong to differs, as does the economic situation of the country in which they are located, they share timeless human values. Motherhood, the need for survival, but also the way a woman sees her role and her image are traced in these photographs. 

This early work was first exhibited at the Teloglion Art Foundation of Thessaloniki in 2011 and a photo album entitled “Trying harder” has also been published by the publishing house, University Studio Press. The work continues to this day and is constantly enriched with new material. 

GEORGE KATSAGGELOS 

Georgios Katsagelos studied photography on scholarship at Brooklyn College in New York under Walter Rosenblum. He is Professor Emeritus of the Department of Visual and Applied Arts of the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki where he taught for 36 years. From 2006 to 2010 he was Dean of the School of Fine Arts of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He was Director of the Thessaloniki Cinema Museum from 2002 to 2005. He is President of the Electoral Committee of the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography and a member of the Board of Directors of Momus. 

Georgios has received recognition across Europe and Asia, including 1st Photography Prizes in Saint Petersburg (2010) and Tashkent (2013), multiple Awards for National and International Distinctions from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (2016, 2019, 2022), and the Grand International Prize at Caravansaraï in Kutaisi, Georgia (2022).

His works are in the permanent collection of the Thessaloniki Museum of Photography, in Brooklyn Museum of New York, Milwaukee Art Museum, Ikonen Museum Recklinghausen, Germany, Greek Cultural Center and Stockholm, Sweden and Hellenic Photography Center, Athens. 

He has held more than 140 group and solo exhibitions in Greece and abroad in museums and art galleries. He has published 10 monographs and is a permanent columnist for the magazine PHOTOGRAPHER from 2015 to present.