LOS ANGELES – The ‘Pretty in Pink: A Portrait of Queen Olga of Greece at the Benaki Museum’ lecture by George Manginis, Academic Director of the Benaki Museum in Athens, takes place on Saturday, January 11, 2025, 4 PM, at 314 Royce Hall on the UCLA Campus in Los Angeles. The event includes a reception and a conversation following the lecture with Sharon Gerstel, Director of the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture.
On the third floor of the Benaki Museum in central Athens hangs a portrait of Queen Olga, the consort of Greece’s second king, painted a few years after her wedding to George I. In March 2021, the portrait, attributed to an unknown artist, was included in the Museum’s anniversary exhibition celebrating the bicentennial of the Greek Revolution. This lecture will unfold the story of this radiant but enigmatic painting, from its creation to its bequest to the Museum, offering surprising insights into 19th– and 20th– century Greek and European history.
George Manginis is the Academic Director of the Benaki Museum in Athens. He has taught and researched Cypriot prehistory, Islamic art and architecture, Sinai studies, Chinese ceramics, European decorative arts and the Greek and Armenian diasporas. In 2016, he published ‘Mount Sinai: A History of Travellers and Pilgrims’ and ‘China Rediscovered: The Benaki Museum Collection of Chinese Ceramics’, followed by ‘Ceramics from Korea at the Benaki Museum: The George Eumorfopoulos Collection’ and ‘Director’s Choice: Benaki Museum in 2021’, and ‘Imperial China’ in 2023.
This event is held under the auspices of the Consulate General of Greece in Los Angeles, co-sponsored by UCLA Art History, and made possible thanks to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).
Gefyra (Bridge) is a collaborative program established by the UCLA SNF Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture and the SNF Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University with support from the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF). Gefyra’s mission is to connect students, faculty, and communities along the West Coast of North America with Greek scholars, artists, and other creators, so that they can together explore expansive and imaginative approaches to Greek culture and knowledge production. The program additionally supports academic conferences and cultural projects that bridge the West Coast and Greece.
RSVP online: https://tinyurl.com/4ymbnhxb.
