A quieter, more contemplative Delphi came into focus this January, continuing through February, as the Athens Art Gallery presents Delphi in the 1950s: Through the Lens of Robert McCabe, a bilingual photo album and accompanying exhibition that revisit the sacred site through rare postwar images.
The album will be officially presented to the public on Tuesday, January 20, 2026, at 19:00, in an event attended by Robert McCabe himself. Alongside the presentation, a selection of his photographs will be on view at the gallery, offering an intimate portrait of Delphi at a moment suspended between antiquity and modernity.
Captured in the years following World War II, McCabe’s photographs approach Delphi with restraint and deep sensitivity. His lens traces the dialogue between monumental ruins and the surrounding landscape, revealing a place shaped as much by light and silence as by stone. Far from postcard images, the photographs reflect a lived, human scale—an archaeological site still closely intertwined with daily life and memory.
Edited by Sophia Hiniadou Cambanis, the publication brings together historical insight, literary reflection and visual poetry. It includes an introductory text by Minister of Culture Dr. Lina Mendoni, commentary on the photographs by Athanasia Psalti, head of the Ephorate of Antiquities of Phocis, and selected excerpts from poems and literary works on Delphi, curated by Cambanis herself.
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As the editor writes, “The Apollonian light enfolds the monuments that stand out in glory against the divine serenity of the Delphic landscape, and the photographer’s lens captures, in its own poetic manner, the inner power found in the unremitting interplay between light and matter slipping away from time’s inescapable transformation, building a bridge with the present.”
The Athens presentation follows the album’s first unveiling in Delphi in May 2025 by the Minister of Culture, marking its first introduction to the Athenian public. The accompanying exhibition will run until February 21, 2026.
All proceeds from the sale of the album will be donated to the Archaeological Site and Museum of Delphi, reinforcing the project’s commitment not only to memory and art, but also to preservation.
