Constantine Manos

Constantine Manos was born in Columbia, South Carolina, U.S.A., of Greek immigrant parents. His photographic career began in the school camera club at the age of thirteen, and within several years, he was a working professional. He graduated from the University of South Carolina with a B.A. in English Literature. At the age of nineteen, he was hired as the official photographer of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Upon completion of his military service, he moved to New York, where he worked for Esquire, LIFE, and Look. His book, Portrait of a Symphony, a documentary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, was published in 1961. From 1961 to 1963 he lived in Greece, where he made the photographs for his book A Greek Portfolio, first published in 1972. In 1963, Manos joined Magnum Photos.

Returning from Greece, Manos settled in Boston and completed many assignments for Time-Life books, including their book on Athens. In 1974, he was the chief photographer for Where’s Boston?, a multimedia production that documented the city and provided the photographs for his book Bostonians.

Manos’s photographs are in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Bibliothéque Nationale, Paris; George Eastman House, Rochester, NY; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Benaki Museum, Athens.