G. Utudjian was a society and fashion photographer, based in Paris during the interwar period. His background and circumstances of settlement in France are not known. Utudjian photographed primarily for commercial purposes and his subjects included film and theatre personalities, fashion models, as well as the Parisian upper-middle classes. Some of his work also appears as part of advertising campaigns in journals such as Paris Plaisirs between 1925-35. Refined and unashamedly theatrical, Utundjian’s sleek photographs are etalons of perfect image-making. Individuals rarely appear as themselves un his portraits, which relay not merely a likeness, but an entirely self-conscious performance. This admiration of the surface was typical of art deco stylistic tendencies in European photography of the time of which Studio Harcourt, Aram Alban and Studio Phebus were major representatives.

Vigen Galstyan, 2016