Greek Folk Art Museum

Greek Folk Art Museum Review

Run by the Ministry of Culture, the museum focuses on folk art from 1650 to the present, with especially interesting embroideries, stone and wood carvings, Carnival costumes, and Karaghiozis (shadow player figures). In recent years, the museum has undergone an impressive expansion and now incorporates the beautiful 19th-century neoclassical Bath-House of the Winds in Kyrristou Street, a spectacularly vast mosque (now deconsecrated and given over to museum displays) located in Areos Street, and exhibitions at nearby 22 Panos Street, which handles the vast overflow of objects on view. Everyday tools—stamps for communion bread, spinning shuttles, raki flasks—attest to the imagination with which Greeks have traditionally embellished the most utilitarian objects. Don't miss the room of uniquely fanciful landscapes and historical portraits by beloved Greek folk painter Theophilos Hatzimichalis, from Mytilini.