DESCRIPTION
HISTORY
EXHIBITIONS
INFORMATION
PHOTOGALLERY
 
 
The Museum of Greek Folk Art comprises:

The Exhibition rooms (permanent and periodic exhibitions).

The Administrative Services.

The Library, containing 5000 volumes, chiefly on folk art, folklore, ethnology and museology.

The Archives (Photographic, Film, Sound).

The Photographic Archive contains negatives and transparencies of the objects in the museum collections and of subjects in Greece (objects - monuments, occupations, etc.).

The Educational Programme Section.



The Conservation Laboratory for museum objects, staffed by specialists in the conservation of fabrics and different materials, especially wood and metal. The responsibilities of the Laboratory include all work and activities connected with the preventive and active conservation, restoration and protection of the Museum collections, and also the documentation and publication of the conservation work.



Parenthetically, the Society "The Friends of the Museum of Greek Folk Art" (1989) assists in furthering the various objectives of the Museum and is responsible for the operation of the Museum Shop.



The Museum of Greek Folk Art has a long tradition of contacts with the public for the purpose of promoting and projecting Greek traditional culture and making it known to the public at large. These contacts are fostered by:

Traveling and Periodic Exhibitions

- in the sector of traveling exhibitions, the Museum of Greek Folk Art played a leading part by organising in 1977 the "Traveling Exhibition", which toured abroad in many countries of Europe from 1978 until 1985 with a display of 150 unique museum objects, mainly representative of modern Greek culture,.

- within Greece, in the sector of exhibitions, Periodic Thematic Exhibitions were organised in the rooms of the Museum.



Various activities connected with seasonal customs (Christmas, Carnival, etc.) or thematic groups (weaving, dance and music, marriage).



Educational Programmes The Museum of Greek Folk Art is the first state Museum to have organised

Educational Programmes since 1981, which have proved a great success.

Organisation of Seminars and Conferences.



Publication of scientific books and catalogues.

Another important contribution of the Museum of Greek Folk Art has been through its contacts, from the centre, with the provinces. These take the form of collaboration between the Museum and the local folk art museums in research, exhibitions, conservation, etc.



In the field of research, which is largely concerned with the study and investigation of Greek traditional culture, the Museum of Greek Folk Art collaborates through research and other programmes with related scholarly institutions and organisations (Universities, Research Centres, museums) for the realisation of its research projects. In this context the Museum created in 1989, in collaboration with the Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation and the Lyceum of Greek Women, and under the aegis of the Department of Folk Culture of the Ministry of Culture, the National Archive of Greek Traditional Costume.



The Museum Collections

The Museum owns rich collections of objects representing all branches of folk art:

- Embroidery

- Weaving

-Costumes

-Masquerades

- Shadow Theatre

- Silver Work

- Metalwork

- Pottery

- Woodcarving

- Folk Painting (works of Theophilos Hatzimichail)

- Stonecarving

The collections of the Museum of Greek Folk Art date from 1650 until today.