He also served as court painter to Emperor Menelik II and was a recipient of the Greek Military Cross.

[1] At the age of fifteen he was working as an icon painter and attracted the attention of Hortense Wood, an English artist who was living near Smyrna.

She gave him drawing lessons and presented his work to Nikiforos Lytras, who recommended Prokopiou to the Athens School of Fine Arts.

Two years later, he travelled to Alexandria and Cairo, where he painted portraits of notable figures in the Greek communities there, including Pavlos Melas, who introduced him to the head of Ethiopia's diplomatic mission.

The following year, General Leonidas Paraskevopoulos commissioned him to produce paintings, photographs and films of the Greek campaigns against the Turks during the Greco-Turkish War.

After the Turkish recapture of Smyrna, he returned home and remained to take photographs of the Great Fire.

[3] Finally, he wrote to Prime Minister Metaxas, saying that he was ashamed to stay at home when his two sons were out fighting for Greece.