The Benaki Museum presents a collection of 148 photographs by Joan Leigh Fermor, the equally talented wife of the celebrated Irish travel writer Patrick Leigh Fermor.
Joan and Paddy Leigh Fermor were united in a pact of liberty – sharing their lives, mostly in Greece, as lovers and friends. As photographer and writer, they were also artists of equal stature.
- Pictures courtesy of the Benaki Museum and Joan Leigh Fermor Estate
Between the 1940s and 1960s Joan took thousands of photographs of people and places as she travelled with Paddy round Greece. A few appeared in his books Mani and Roumeli; most remained unseen until her death in 2003. Her archive is held at the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.
In this new exhibition and accompanying book, Ian Collins and Olivia Stewart pay tribute to an elusive figure whose art is a revelation.
- Pictures courtesy of the Benaki Museum and Joan Leigh Fermor Estate
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Joan Leigh Fermor was a restless rebel who took brilliant images of the London Blitz as a symbol of all that she would be leaving behind. She met Paddy in Cairo in 1944 and soon he was following her to Athens. They travelled all over Greece before settling in the Peloponnese – in the beautiful house they built at Kardamyli and bequeathed to the Benaki Museum.
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