The images from the photographic archive of ELIA-MIET, included in this publication, show the artist in their workspace. As Kostas Ioannidis notes in his introduction, in the laboratory space and through the interaction with drawings, materials, tools, ideas, and people, the miracle of artistic creation is conceived and occurs.

“There, the few chosen ones, friends, artists, patrons, come to witness part of the process or be the first to see the final result.” The workshop is not only a space of creation but also a meeting place for artists, evaluation, competition, or mutual recognition. The workshop is also a space of gathering, isolation, reflection, or even a teaching space.

It is a closed space for the many, where mainly specialists, painters, sculptors, and their assistants operate. Prominent patrons occasionally take advantage of their position to penetrate the inner sanctum. Human relationships develop starting from a world of representations.

The photographs from the ELIA-MIET archive cover a long time span and capture moments from the rare visits of photographers to the sacred spaces of painters or sculptors. In front of the camera lens pose Frikso Aristeas, Nikiforos Lytras, Thomas Thomopoulos, Georgios Roilos, Kostas Dimitriadis, Kostis Parthenis, Yiannis Kefallinos, Georgios Iakovidis, Thalia Flora-Karavia, Foikion Rok, Michalis Tompros, George Gounaropoulos, Thomas Fanourakis, Georgios Sikeliotis, Yiannis Migadis, Yiannis Tsarouchis, Spyros Vasileiou, Georgios Manousakis, Minos Argyarakis, Yiannis Moralis, Georgios Mavroidis, Christos Kapralos, Manolis Noukakis, Andreas Nomikos, Natalia Mela, Kostas Tsoklis, and Theodoros.