Apkar Retian, an Armenian, was one of the most important photographers in Egypt during the first half of the 20th century. He was active from the 1920s to the 1960s; during this time, he was very productive and he managed to establish himself as an artist photographer. He studied next to Aram Alban, later (by the mid-1920s) taking over his photographic studio and preserving the old name till the early 1940s.