Apkar Retian was one of the most significant photographers working in Egypt in the first half of the 20th century. Unfortunately, little is know about his life and activity and few of his photographs have been located, although by all accounts he was an extremely prolific photographer. According to some reports his family emigrated from Amasia, Turkey and settled in Alexandria at the end of the 19th century. After becoming an apprentice to Aram Alban, Retian took over Alban’s photography studio in Alexandria after his elder partner decided to relocate to Europe. He ran this establishment under Alban’s name from mid 1920s to early 1940s. While he emulated Alban’s style in his studio portraiture, Apkar gradually employed a more naturalistic and lyrical approach to photography that was much more subtle in its observation of the Egyptian landscape and people. It is possible that he was influenced by the latest trends in documentary photography that were coming out of American and France during the 1930s. This ultimately realist vision often went against the grain of the highly stylised and theatrical mode of studio photography practiced by other Egyptian-Armenians of the time, such as Van Leo and Angelo. That Apkar was aware and presented himself as an artist is exemplified by the kind of subject matter he chose to photograph – daily life, landscape at its most basic and ordinary people. While his work retains a romantic spirit it is completely devoid of sensationalist and exotic aura that typifies so much of 19th and early 20th century photography in Egypt.
When Alban returned to Egypt in the early 1940s, he moved to Cairo so as to not compete with his friend and ex-partner. Apkar renamed his studio after his first name and continued to successfully operate until the mid 1960s. A large number of photographs from the 20s and 30s carrying the Alban studio stamp are likely to be Apkar’s work.