Photographs published in the local press by Aghasi Klekchyan, almost exclusively relate to the theatre and performance arts. During his youth in the 1930s, Klekchyan began his professional career as an actor in Amo Kharazyan’s ItinerantState Theatre and then worked as a scenic designer and actor in the municipals theaters of Sevan and Artashat cities. Klekchyan's photographic activity began in full in the post-war years when he took the photographer’s position at the Armenian Theater Company and, as the theater writer Bakhtiyar Hovakimyan states, ‘left for posterity the photographic history of nearly three decades of events in the life of the Armenian theatre.’ (1)

Klekchyan has also made portraits of notable stage actors and opera stars, many of which have been used in advertisements and were published in the press. Often being the only visual records of stage performances, Klekchyan’s images correspond to the customs of the genre anddo not seek to go beyond conventions.

1) Bakhtiar Hovakimyan, ‘Samvel Khandikyan, the Artist’, www.azg.am, 13, June, 2014, http://www.azg.am/AM/culture/2014061303

Vigen Galstyan, 2016