Tributes pour in for George Lanitis
RENOWNED columnist, photographer and cultural figure, George Lanitis, has died aged 69.
Born in Famagusta on February 23, 1936, Lanitis passed away on Sunday night after suffering from kidney trouble for some time.
Lanitis studied Communication and Arts at the London College of Printing of the University of London, before working for the Times of Cyprus and the BBC.
He was appointed chief cameraman, film director and head of the International and Public Relations department at the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation and also edited and published the Cyprus Diplomatist.
For over 24 years, he was the regular diarist of the Cyprus Weekly newspaper, expressing his views on various topics in a social column.
At the age of seventeen, Lanitis organised the first photographic exhibition to be held by a school in Cyprus, at the Pan-Cyprian Gymnasium.
During his time at the London College of Printing, he made tremendous progress and was awarded the Associateeship of the Royal Photographic Society and the Fellowship of the Royal Society of Arts.
During his life, Lanitis photographed some of the most important personalities of the 20th century, including Mao Tse-tung, General de Gaulle, Winston Churchill, Lyndon B Johnson, Indira Ghandi, Pablo Picasso, Marilyn Monroe, Laurence Olivier and Queen Elizabeth II.
One of the Cyprus Weekly’s founders and a close friend of Lanitis, Georges der Parthogh, described him as “the most superb photographer Cyprus has ever known. In fact, I considered him to be one of the world’s top photographers.”
In 1974, he was living in Bellapais, near Kyrenia, where he lost all his negatives, archives, photographic collection, equipment and house, following the Turkish invasion.
He then moved to The Hilton hotel in Nicosia with De Parthogh, explaining that “at the time, the hotel was the only place on the island where you could get a telex connection overseas. Every journalist worked at the Hilton back then”.
Lanitis almost gave up photography until in 1978, he put together the first Commonwealth Exhibition of Photography at Edmonton, Alberta, to run concurrently with the Commonwealth Games.
He was elected General-Secretary of the Commonwealth Arts Organisation and advised governments and art institutions, at the same time organising exhibitions and seminars in Canada, Africa, India, Australia, Hong Kong and Britain.
His hobbies included food and drink, animals, gardening and homemaking.
He leaves behind a wife, Androulla and three children.
The funeral will take place tomorrow at 5pm at the Ayios Constantinou church in Nicosia.
The family will receive condolences at the church at 4.30pm and request that, instead of wreaths, donations are made to the Pan-Cyprian Kidney Sufferers Association and the Pan-Cyprian Cancer Association.
Tributes have started pouring in, with political party EDEK issuing a statement expressing their deepest condolences “over the death of award-winning photographer, director and cinematographer George Lanitis, honorary member of EDEK.
“He proved to be a great man of culture who honoured Cyprus. He was also a consistent democrat and socialist who preserved the values of social justice and support.
“Cyprus has lost a pioneer of culture and the social democrats have lost a shining beacon of ideology.
We offer our deepest sympathy to his family.”
