Ioanna Papantoniou

Studied stage design at the Wimbledon School of Art in London.

She designed for all the state theatres, as well as the “Proscenium” Theatre of Alexis Solomos, the Art Theatre of Karolos Koun, the Minotis-Paxinou Company and for Michael Elliot at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester, UK.

From 1956 to 1966 she carried out in situ research on Greek local costume as a member of the Lyceum Club of Greek Women in Athens, of which she is a great donour. In 1974 she founded the “B. Papantoniou” Peloponnesian Folklore Foundation –now Basil Papantoniou Foundation (BPF)- in memory of her father, which in 1981 won the European Museum of the Year Award. In 2013 the Foundation was honoured with the Academy of Athens Award for its long term contribution to the promotion of the Hellenic culture. In 2003, she founded the Greek Costume Society.

She has taught in the Departments of Theatre Studies of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, of the University of Patras and of the University of the Peloponnese.

She is an Honorary Doctor of the Department of History and Archaeology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and was honoured by the Academy of Athens (1981), with the Gold Cross of the Order of the Phoenix by the President of the Greek Democracy Kostis Stefanopoulos (2000), with the “Panos Aravantinos” Award of the Centre for Study and Research in Greek Theatre (2004) and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the European Museum Academy (2013).