ADMINISTRATIVE COUNCIL
Executive Committee:
President: Dominique Souris
Deputy President: Argero Manias
First Vice-President: Marianthi Katakouzinos
Second Vice-President: Antigone Spyopoulos
General Secretary: Helen Patricios
Special Secretary: Dominique Souris
Treasurer: Panayota Manopoulos

Members:    Chrysoula Argyros, Gail Cambanis, Popi Florias, Ellen Lambrianos, Melissa Moniz, Irene Pilavachi, Maria Sofianos, Antigone Spyropoulos.

OUR HISTORY

Founded in Athens in 1910 by Callirrhoe Parren, the Lyceum Club of Greek Women helped to raise the status of women in Greece by challenging the social and political codes of the time which denied women the right to vote and the right to an education. Callirrhoe Parren’s success is evident by the prestige in which the Lyceum Club of Greek Women are held throughout the world today. The Athens Lyceum has been very successful in preserving Greek culture. It has documented all Greek folk costumes and choreographed every Greek folk dance, it has established an impressive Greek costume and artefacts museum in Athens and is responsible for a troupe of resident folk dancers who have achieved international acclaim.

The mandate to establish the Club in South Africa was given by Anna Alevras, a prominent member of the Athens Lyceum Club of Greek Women for many years. On a visit to her friend Elly Luycks in 1982, Anna Alevras suggested that Elly set up a Lyceum Club of Greek Women branch. It was, however, only through the efforts of Sonia Papageorgiou, wife of Dr Michael Akis Papageorgiou, the Greek Ambassador to South Africa, that the Johannesburg branch of the Lyceum Club of Greek Women was founded in 1987.
One of the Johannesburg Lyceum Club of Greek Women’s earliest achievements was to erect a commemorative plaque at the home in Pretoria where the Nobel Prize winning poet George Seferis once lived.

OUR PATRON

The Pouroulion, at Saheti, houses the headquarters of the Lyceum Club of Greek Women, which was made possible by the generous donation of our great benefactress, Artemis Pouroulis.

ARTEMIS POUROULIS matriculated at a private college in Cyprus and then moved to Athens where she obtained a BSc Nursing degree. She practised at the Paphos Hospital in Cyprus for one year before meeting and marrying Loucas Pouroulis in South Africa.

Artemis spent most of her early life being housewife to her mining magnate husband and four children, as well as filling in at the office whenever she was needed.

She began painting in Mauritius while recuperating from an illness. During this solitary period she was gazing out at a magnificent sunset and felt an urgent need to capture it on canvas. Immediately upon her return, she joined Eileen Rogoff’s art school and faithfully attended three classes a week. In fact, she took her painting so seriously, that she retreated from her busy schedule for a minimum of five hours a day, to ensure that her work reached exhibition standards.

Many of Artemis’s works feature exquisite skies and amazing doors. When asked why, she quips “Because behind every door there is a hidden secret and perhaps I was a bird in my previous life.”

Artemis was invited to exhibit at Artexpo NY 88, the largest contemporary art fair in the world, which in those days was attended by over 98 000 visitors and generated some $75 million in sales. This show presented an unequalled market place for trade buyers and collectors to see some of the best art available in the world.

Since then, Artemis has shown her works at many exhibitions both locally and overseas.  Her creative flair also finds expression in many talents, including gardening, jewellery manufacture, handcrafts, cooking and baking.  She has published an art book, the Artani Jewellery Collection and the very popular Arti’s Kitchen.

Under the auspices of the High Commission of the Republic of Cyprus, the Lyceum Club and the Cyprus Brotherhood of SA celebrated Artemis’s creativity and philanthropy at an elegant event in November 2016.