"Passage of General Allenby to
Beirut welcomed by
General Favre." / Aziz Zabbal / 1919 / Lebanon /
Coll. R. Sawaya Zabbal
Photography was introduced to
the Arab world by European photographers who traveled in the region in the early 1850's,
taking photographs of archaeological and biblical sites. Towards the end of the 1860's,
the young locals who had worked as assistants to the European pioneers began producing
their own images. Local photographic production intensified after Yessai Garabedian, the
Armenian Patriarch of Jerusalem, held the first photography workshop in the region in the
1860's. In the years that followed, photographic production expanded, especially after the
massive exodus of Armenians (many of whom had worked as photographers) from Turkey to Arab
lands. This exodus provided the labor force necessary to accommodate an expanding appetite
for photographs, especially after the invention and export of the Kodak box cameras in the
1880's and 1890's to the Arab world. This phenomenon put photography in the hands of many,
especially non-professionals, as it did elsewhere in Europe and North America.
It is important to note that the introduction of photography in the Arab world occurred in
the context of a larger modernizing project whose effects were felt in the social,
political, and economic life of the emerging nation-states. Politically, the geo-political
re-mapping of the region after W.W.I and the rise of nationalist liberation movements
spawned a new consciousness of geography and identity. In Architecture and civil
engineering, new ways of building were introduced along with new materials and
technologies. Modern approaches to urban planning were implemented to accommodate for the
new means of train, car, and plane transport. The Arab world at the time also witnessed
the emergence of labor and women's movements as well as modern disciplinary institutions.
New literary and artistic forms certified that the question of identity was central to the
emerging social, economic, and political reality unfolding. AIF's collection, which covers
a range of photographic practices over a span of 100 years, traces the social evolution
described above. It traces them through the history of the photographic medium, through a
history of various practices and various individual and institutional relationships to
photography.
STUDIO PHOTOGRAPHY
The earliest photographic
studios in the region were founded by resident-Europeans, such as the Bonfils family and
Jules Lind in Lebanon; Giuntini, Lekegian, Reiser and Heyman in Egypt; Madson in
Palestine; and Thevenet in Syria. The earliest studio photographs in AIF's collection come
from these photographers. They include Albumen prints of different sizes including Cabinet
photographs; 8x10 inch portraits; and "carte de visite" portraits. The images
date back to the period between 1860 and 1895. Most are signed by their producers and are
mounted on thick cardboard with ornamented backs. The studios' addresses are also
imprinted on the back. Some are dated, but most are not. Some are commissioned family
portraits, while others depict "typologies," such as villagers, water carriers,
Bedouins, dervishes. AIF's collection also includes images of building types, streets, and
general city views (like the photos of Madson, and Bonfils, including large panoramic
Albumen prints of Jerusalem). From the same period,.the Nasrallah collection of
stereograms include various landscape images of Cairo as well as some remarkable scenes of
capital punishment produced by Lekegian.
Since local producers at this time catered to the same market, their work was not
different stylistically from that of the Europeans'. Locals also produced portraits of
members of wealthy families and images for the traveling tourists. At this point in the
19th century, local photographers, while few in numbers, were as technically competent as
Europeans. A good example of early local studio photography is that of Sebah in Egypt. AIF
owns about 40 Albumen prints of his work as part of the N. Salam collection. They are all
8x10 inch prints, some of which are hand colored.
In the early 20th century, as more Armenians settled in the region and took up photography
as a profession, we see the emergence in Jerusalem, for example, of studios such as Garbis
Krikorian's. This studio operated for over forty years with Garbis' son, Yohannes, taking
over after his father's death. Krikorian's collection reached us through Yohannes'
daughter who currently lives in Jordan. Like other local studio owners/operators, the
Krikorians trained a generation of younger photographers, such as Khalil Raad in
Jerusalem, who later opened his own studio right across the street from Krikorian's. Raad
continued a tradition that his mentors started, that of dressing clients in all sorts of
traditional folklore costume and props. Raad's collection, which was donated to the
Foundation by E. Kleidman, consists of 4x5 glass negatives dating back to the 1920's. They
are mostly portraits of people in traditional costume with props. The Kleidman collection
included also 64 stereogrames taken by Antoun Carmi in the 1930's and 1940's.
Another local photographer from this period is Camille el Kareh whose work stands as one
of the very few documents on North-Lebanon. His post-mortem portraits present a rare
document of the representation of death in the region. El Kareh's collection, which the
Foundation holds thanks to the Lebanese collector M. Yammine, consists of more that a
hundred 8x10 glass negatives. It also includes portraits and general landscape views of
North Lebanon.
In the 1930's and 1940's, Cairo became the undisputed center of cultural production in the
Middle East. A number of photographers distinguished themselves during this period,
Armenians such as Van Leo (Levon Boyadjian), Alban and Armand being the most renowned. The
Foundation holds around a hundred Van Leo prints (30 x 40 cm) and more than 250 glass
plates and negatives authored by Armand.
NON-PROFESSIONAL
PHOTOGRAPHY
AIF owns some of the earliest
examples of non-professional photography. They are the photographs produced by Salim Abu
Izzeddin, a Lebanese official who lived and worked in Egypt in the first decade of the
20th century. The collection comprises 8x10 inch glass plates that date back to the early
1900's. They depict moments from intimate family life and are characterized with a very
modern aesthetic. Another Example is the work produced by Marie el Khazen in
North-Lebanon. She is one of the very few women photographers we are able to trace. Her
images date back to the late 1920's and early 1930's. She traveled around the country and
photographed different life styles on the Mediterranean cost and in inland. Her collection
of negatives reflects a sensitivity to social issues that was rare at that time. Her work
is all the more significant in light of the fact that although women were involved in
photography directly by producing heir own images and indirectly by assisting their
husbands and relatives, their work was almost always signed by male partners. Hers was one
of the rare instances when a woman was credited for her own work.
There is no doubt that the most coherent body of work done by a non-professional is the
work of Dr. Jebrail Jabbur. His grand-daughter Norma donated the collection to AIF. It
consists of more than 500 negatives dating back to the years 1915-1940. The Jabbur
collection is divided in two parts. The first consists of personal photographs that were
produced in Egypt during his years of study and in his hometown Al-Karyatein (Syria)
between 1915-1925. The second is a photographic study of Syria's Bedouins.
ANONYMOUS WORKS
The Foundation's collections
include anonymous photographs of cultural and historic significance. They illustrate the
uses of photography in various domains and testify to the development of a network of
disciplinary institutions like prisons, asylums, hospitals, schools, universities, and
departments of public health, among others. They are important in that they give us a
sense of photography as a cultural practice whose discursive parameters were broad and
complex.
Beirut, 1998
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