Anissanyants lived in Kutaisi- the second largest city in Georgia - at the beginning of the 20th century. His ‘Photographie Makart’ studio was located in front of the city’s Women’s College. For that reason, a significant portion of Anisonyants’ output is made up of portraits of young female students. While quite conventional when taken separately, collectively, these carte de visit and cabinet portraits make up a fascinating archive that speaks about the inherent tensions between photographic constructions of femininity in Caucasian culture and the rise of women’s intellectual emancipation in the early 1900s.

Vigen Galstyan, 2016