Title
Kelud volcano eruption no.7 (Bed of the 'keloet' river filled with pumice and boiling mud. This river was in a deep valley and was filled 80 yards deep with lava)
1901
Artist
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Details
- Place where the work was made
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Java
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Indonesia
- Date
- 1901
- Media category
- Photograph
- Materials used
- gelatin silver photograph
- Dimensions
- 23.1 x 17.0 cm
- Signature & date
Not signed. Not dated.
- Credit
- Gift of Robert Dein 2021
- Location
- Not on display
- Accession number
- 279.2021
- Copyright
- Artist information
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Ohannes Kurkdjian
Works in the collection
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About
Ohannes Kurkdjian, was born in a small Armenian town in the Ottoman Empire and was a photographer in the Russian army before moving to Indonesia in 1886. In 1890 he established a studio in Surabaya from where he produced portraits, landscapes and ethnographic studies. His most memorable works reveal a profound engagement with the precarious peaks of Java’s fiery volcanoes. Kurkdjian’s photographs of the Mount Kelud eruption of May 1901 are imbued with an awe for nature’s sublime power to both inspire and wreak havoc. Within Javanese culture of the time the fiery eruption was seen as a symbol of a new dawn also marked by the birth, just a month later of Sukarno, who was to become Indonesia’s first president. For many, these events were prophetic of great change that would free Indonesia from its Dutch colonisers and return it to a state of cosmic order.
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Places
Where the work was made
Java
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Exhibition history
Shown in 1 exhibition
Elemental, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 30 Jul 2022–2024
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Provenance
Robert Dein, 1990s-Dec 2021, Sydney/New South Wales/Australia, purchased from a London based dealer in the 1990s. Donated to the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Dec 2021.