... Ideal place for inspiration and creativity
Hydra, from the 50's, has been one of the most importand cultural centers, which has been gathering famous personas of Arts and Literature from Greece and abroad. This has rendered Hydra as a center of artistic creation.
Many Greek writers have lived and written about Hydra, such as Nobel award winner George Seferis. The cultural way of life owes a great deal to the Hydraian painter Gikas. Also from Hydra is the modern poet Miltos Saxtouris.
Deeply connected to the Island are the painters and also the writers Nick Xatzikiriakos-Gikas, Mauroidis George, Panag. Tetsis, Kostas Vizantios, Seferis, Elitis, Eggonopoulos, Petsalis, Pikionis and Henry Miller and many other artists and cultural people, who came to the Island and love it, recongnizing to it the ideal place of inspiration and creation.
The painter Periklis Vizantios (1893-1971), in 1936 with the former director of the School of Arts, formed the division of the School of Arts, which accommodated the Manor of Admiral Tomopazi. There, importand people of the Arts and Literature have been housed, such as Chagall and the writer Daninos.
Hydra has been praised not only by foreign writers who lived in it, but also by many other writers around the world, who mention in their writings, partially or entirely, the island of Hydra.
Artists, musicians and other artists from all over the world who lived in Hydra, contributed with their spirit, their lifestyles and their ideological concerns to the creation of a special atmosphere on the island.
Amongst the foreign artists, who connected their names to Hydra, is the famous singer and writer Leonard Cohen, who arrived at Hydra in the 1960's, where there was a small community of foreign and local artists.
Key figures were the Australians writers George Johnson and Charmian Clift, the English painter Anthony Kingsmil, the American painter Peter Nolan, the Norwegian author Axel Gensen and the American poet Allen Ginsberg.
In the 1950s film producers "discover" Hydra and use it liberally in their movies. In Hydra was made in the 50s the movie "The Boy on a Dolphin" with Sophia Loren and Hydra became known internationally. In 1960, Mixalis Kakogiannis filmed the movie "The girl in black", which advertised the Island of Hydra all around the world.
Among the most famous films shot in Hydra is the famous "Girl in Black" of Michael Cacoyannis with Ellie Lambeti, shortly before 1960, which received rave reviews in European festivals.
When they arrived on the island Melina Mercouri with Anthony Perkins and Jules Dassin, for the filming of "Phaedra" in 1962, Hydra became a mythical paradise.
Hydra hosts every year, very significant exhibitions. An initiative of the collector Pauline Karpida in "HydraWorkshop", which is in its 17th year of operation, an initiative of artist Dimitri Antonitsis in "Hydra School Project", which operates in the old high school to the Mansion Sahtouris, for 13 years, an initiative of the collector Dakis Ioannou to the newest Project Space of Deste Foundation.
These spaces, along with the Museum of Hydra, but occasionally with some abandoned places at Kamini, the nearby picturesque harbor offer important options of artistic events.
All of them praised through their works the island, so Hydra today became the dream of many people, who occasionally visit the island.
