What would today’s generation—raised on curated images and filters—know of the innocence of the Greek islands if not for Robert McCabe? The American photographer, armed only with a camera, roamed the Aegean and parts of mainland Greece in the 1950s, capturing a world of purity and light. His black-and-white photographs immortalized an unvarnished Greece—simple faces, raw landscapes, spontaneous beauty dancing between sea, sky, and cloud.

McCabe’s first exhibition appeared in 1954 at Princeton’s Firestone Library. Little did he know his brief encounter with Greece would become a lifelong affair—one that would fill countless albums and books, and eventually earn him Greek citizenship in 2000.

Now, selected works from that early “black-and-white” period are on display at the Greek Embassy in Berlin, a show born from McCabe’s own wish. “As soon as I heard of his desire, I immediately acted,” said Ambassador Alexandros Papaioannou. “It was the perfect opportunity to host such an exhibition in our beautiful embassy spaces.”

Locating the photographs proved a mission in itself: Papaioannou personally retrieved around 80 prints from a nearby embassy, carefully transporting them by car.

At the opening on Oct. 24, McCabe—now 91—was there in person, quietly greeting visitors alongside his daughter. When asked how Greece first entered his life, he smiled: “Pure luck. I didn’t even know where it was on the map. My brother’s friend, Petros Nomikos, invited us for two weeks—we stayed the whole summer. He ended up in Germany and Austria, and I in Greece.”

The exhibition runs until March 2026, open every Tuesday and Thursday. “It’s vital to show Greece through foreign eyes too,” noted the Ambassador. Beyond McCabe’s lens, the Berlin Embassy remains alive with Greek culture—concerts, talks, films, and art that reveal another Greece, timeless yet ever renewed.