Pichkhulyan worked between the 1940s and 1960s, acting as a photo-correspondent for ‘Sovetakan Hayastan’ (Soviet Armenia) magazine and other local periodicals. His published photographs are primarily propagandising reportages and usually cover industrial works in Armenia. From the 1950s onwards Pichkhulyan concentrated on stage photography, documenting numerous theatrical and opera performances. Amidst such works, his portraits of prominent Armenian actors and singers are more accomplished in their formal qualities. They reflect one of the key preoccupations of socialist-realist photography: the creation of an artist's iconic image while maintaining the intellectual’s ‘proletarian’ status.

Vigen Galstyan, 2016