The best postcards of Corfu ever produced were reproductions of Angelos Giallinas’s gorgeous watercolours. They were printed in Corfu by the Aspiotis-ELKA printworks, which operated in a large building, now a school, located behind the Ionian University on Kapodistrias Street. The postcards featured mainly village scenes, and are now collectors items.

Angelos Giallinas (1857-1939) is generally regarded as Corfu’s foremost watercolour artist, and his paintings, immensely popular during his lifetime, command high prices. Transparent and full of light, they capture the charm of Corfu. Much imitated (though never matched), his work remains popular up to the present day. Giallinas travelled extensively in Greece and Europe, painting and exhibiting as he went. Among his most famous works are his views of Athens and its classical monuments, and a series featuring Constantinople; but his Corfiot landscapes remain the best loved. And it was these that he made into postcards.

Their publication, which date from the decade of 1910 and onwards, was a clever commercial move which netted the artist a good income. It was the heyday of the Angleterre Hotel (Bella Venezia), where Europe’s aristocracy comprised the main clientele. The hotel was located above the Orpheas Cinema on Zambellis Street, next to the existing hotel of the same name (it was destroyed by German bombs on the night of 13 September 1943). The Aspiotis-ELKA printworks was just over the road (and the artist’s town house faces the Esplanade nearby), so the Giallinas cards would not have far to travel to the individual who commissioned them!

The Old Venetian Walls (Mouragia), Corfu town

At the time, these cards carried the ‘wish you were here’ message out to Europe. How many people visited Corfu after receiving a card featuring one of Giallinas’s lovely views? Vlaherena with Pontikonissi behind… Paleokastritsa’s bays and hinterland from the Monastery… The Palace of Saint Michael and Saint George… a vista taking in Karoussades and the vale behind… rocks at Paleokastritsa… the Mourayia bathed in morning sunlight… the Peristyle of the Achillion with its statues… the Church of Agia Barbara in Potamos… view from the Pelekas summit… View of Pelekas village… the twin peaks of Pantokrator from the sea… the Old Fortress at dawn… Benitses (my own favourite)…and many more.

Agios Varvaros Church, Potamos

Giallinas almost destroyed the art of watercolour painting in Corfu. His paintings were so gorgeous (and popular) that every subsequent watercolorist tried to copy him. Problem was, Giallinas painted light, and the later artists couldn’t, however hard they tried. The trend led to a marked lack of unoriginality as no-one in this medium dared to try anything new.

Due to the printing process, the postcards really don’t capture the wonderful light of the originals.

Another artist whose work was reproduced on postcards was Vikentios Bocatsiambis (1856 – 1932: an almost exact contemporary of Giallinas). Also printed by the Aspiotis printworks, these cards appear to date from the 1940s and 50s, after the artist’s death.

In contrast to the landscapes of Giallinas’s cards, they feature portraits of peasant ladies in costume, and serve as a record of the island’s lovely national dress. At the time when Bocatsiambis was painting, the costumes varied substantially from village to village; now, on show at touristic ‘Greek Nights’, it is almost completely restricted to the Gastouri wedding outfit.