Background
Thalia Flora-Karavia was born in 1871 in Siatista, Greece. In 1874 she moved with her family to Istanbul.
Θάλεια Φλωρά-Καραβί
Thalia Flora-Karavia was born in 1871 in Siatista, Greece. In 1874 she moved with her family to Istanbul.
Thalia Flora-Karavia obtained a scholarship in Istanbul that let her study from 1883 to 1888 at the Zappeion School for Girls. She decided to study painting and in 1895 moved to Munich where she worked with Georgios Jakobides (1853-1932) and Nikolaos Gyzis (1842-1901).
As a woman she was unable to attend the Munich Academy of Fine Arts, but instead took courses in design and painting in a private school. Flora-Karavia studied beside artists such as Nikolaos Vokos (1859-1902), Paul Nauen (1859-1932), Anton Ažbe (1862-1905) and Walter Thor (1870-1929). She returned to Istanbul in 1898, then went back to Munich until 1900.
Thalia Flora-Karavia's work included a wide range of themes including portraits, landscapes, still lifes, genre scenes and book illustrations. At first she followed the conservative rules of the Academy, but later adopted concepts from Impressionism and Plein air painting.
Thalia Flora-Karavia began to exhibit her work in 1898, and was shown in many solo and group exhibition in Greece and other countries, including the "Parnassus" at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 in Paris, Istanbul in 1901 and 1902, Athens in 1903, Cairo in 1909, Rome in 1911 and the Venice Biennale in 1934.
During her career, Flora-Karavia traveled to various cities in Europe. In 1906 she staged a joint exhibition in Athens with Sophia Laskaridou. In 1907 she visited Egypt and made Alexandria her home for the next thirty years. She founded and ran an art school there.
During the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 Flora-Karavia decided to follow the Greek troops as correspondent for the Alexandrian newspaper directed by her husband. Her drawings recorded the lives of the troops, refugees and casualties in an almost impressionist style. They were published in the 1936 book "Impressions of the 1912-1913 war in Macedonia and Epirus".
She also recorded the Asia Minor Campaign of 1921 and the Albanian Front during the Greco-Italian War of 1940-1941.
In 1940 Flora-Karavia moved to Greece, where she lived for the remainder of her life. She died in 1960 in Athens, Greece.
Young girl
From Ithaca
Boy reading
Portrait of Maria Kalfopoulou, chant professor
Portrait of a woman
Portrait of a man
The Patriarch of Alexandria
Portrait of Yannis Tsarouchis
Nikopolis
Camping to Emmin Aga
Path in the forest
Marie Bonaparte
Bizani
Lady in an interior
Man smoking
Girl
Nikolaos Troupakis, senior commander
Cypress-House
Daisies
Constantinople
Aquifer
Portrait of poet K.P. Cavafy
Sheep on a slope
Repos Aux Champs
Landscape
By the river
While visiting Egypt in 1907 Thalia married the journalist Nicholas Karavia.