Closing the window on Cavafy: Foregrounding the background in the photographic portraits

Two portraits commissioned by C. P. Cavafy a few years before his death have become the dominant images of the poet’s posthumous legacy. An Asian tapestry framing the poet’s head is critical in understanding Cavafy’s self-representation and artistic sensibilities. The tapestry connects Cavafy with the British Aesthetic movement of the 1870s that he witnessed through the social circle of painter James McNeill Whistler and his Greek patrons. The article also argues that the erotic sensibilities of the tapestry were intentionally suppressed in the dissemination of the artist’s image by Greek modernism of the 1930s. The photographic background affirms the complex associations between domestic space, photography and closeted iconographies in the life of a poet who did not leave behind a rich body of writing on the visual arts. Foregrounding this photographic background opens up a new dimension to the artistic universe of Cavafy and his impact in the visual history of portraiture.