The first significant wave of Armenians, who were mostly merchants from Isfahan, Persia and settlements in India, traveled to Batavia (Jakarta), Indonesia at the end of the eighteenth century. The Armenians established several prominent commercial houses engaged in trade with overseas markets.¹ In the second half of the nineteenth century, the center of the Armenian community in the Dutch East Indies gradually moved from Batavia (Western Java) to Surabaya (Eastern Java). On January 6, 1880, the Armenian community was formally recognized as an incorporated society by the Dutch government.² Surabaya became the most important ‘Armenian city’ in the Dutch East Indies around the turn of the twentieth century.³ With Kurkdjian’s “entrepreneurial zeal,” he found success as a commercial and documentary photographer within this milieu of indigenous and Western inhabitants.⁴

In 1890, Kurkdjian established a studio in the Bultzingslowen Square of Surabaya. As his atelier continued to grow, in 1897 Kurkdjian recruited a British assistant, G.P. Lewis (1875-1926), who took over the reins of the studio upon Kurkdjian’s passing in 1903. The studio eventually moved to larger quarters and employed 30 people. It also served as the training grounds for budding photographers, such as Thilly Weissenborn (1883-1964) who became one of the first female photographers to launch a thriving atelier in West Java.

Kurkdjian’s photographic output ranged from artistically composed portraiture of Europeans residing in Surabaya to ethnographic studies of Javanese inhabitants. Outside of the studio, his documentary images consisted of people at work in plantations, factories and laboratories, as well as imagery of exotic Javanese landscapes, tropical forests, beaches and volcanoes. Although Java is a small island, its geography has made it prone to recurrent active volcanoes. Kurkdjian and his assistants captured many of these large and small volcanic eruptions. Following the eruption of Mount Kelud on May 23, 1901, Kurkdjian was invited by the Dutch Government on June 6, 1901 to photograph the aftermath of this striking explosive eruption.⁵ This commissioned photographic assignment, as noted by Galstyan, led to an exhibition which was praised in De Locomotief for bringing the viewer “into the wild world of grandeur, of feeling alone, of becoming a small person facing infinite creation.”^{6 7}

Kurkdjian’s oeuvre incorporated elements of photojournalism, such as the documentation of Queen Wilhelmina’s visit to Java on August 31, 1898. To commemorate the Queen’s visit, he produced an album which incorporated “views of the parade preparations, the visit itself and much of the pomp and circumstances that surrounded it.”⁸ This highly decorative and elaborate album was presented to the Queen. In 1902, she bestowed upon Kurkdjian the Royal Warrant which acknowledged his photographic studies of Indonesia during Dutch colonial rule.

Kurkdjian’s strong nationalistic sentiments to liberate his Armenian compatriots suffering under Ottoman and Russian misrule did not cease upon his departure from Yerevan. With fellow Armenians in Surabaya, he formed the Armenian Encouraging Union whose mission was to promote the liberation of Western Armenians facing oppression and persecution by the Ottoman and Russian authorities. Kurkdjian’s passionate quest to assist from afar his people “brought honor and glory to both himself and his nation.”⁹

Upon Kurkdjian’s passing in 1903, G.P. Lewis ran the studio, and in 1904 it became “O. Kurkdjian & Co., a Company for the Exploitation of the Photographic Atelier Kurkdjian.” In 1915, the Company was taken over by the pharmaceutical importers Mieling & Co.¹⁰ Under the Kurkdjian name, the studio continued to produce portraits and ethnographic studies of Indonesian people and their landscapes until it closed in 1936. However, with the emergence of amateur photographers resulting in the gradual demise of professional photographic ateliers, the studio was compelled to expand its services to include the sale of photographic equipment, and the development, printing, and enlargement of photographs for new users of cameras. ¹¹

Kurkdjian’s ethnographic images of native Indonesians and their landscapes, which were promoted and reproduced by agencies affiliated with the Dutch East Indies, are historical documents that chronicled a chapter from Indonesia’s distant past. However, these photographs are representative of a controversial era connected to Dutch colonialism—a period in history which is now fraught with harsh criticism and rejection. As such, how is one to study and interpret Kurkdjian’s images of a colonized people and their milieu, and what historical value do they hold? Maxwell notes that photography produced during the era of the Dutch East Indies carry “a strong connection to Netherlands colonialism which means that they are today not just regarded ambivalently by photographic historians, but are frequently overlooked.”¹³ With a revision of the past, Kurkdjian’s work may be subject to scrutiny, criticism, and omission. However, in spite of the controversies surrounding his oeuvre, he remains an important figure in the history of Armenian photography.