Philip Adolphe Klier

His photographs, taken both in his studio as well as on location, were mainly sold as picture postcards for foreign visitors. They have also been published in several books and collected in public archives. Among a small number of other photographers, Klier is considered as one of the earliest professional photographers in the history of today's Myanmar.

• Name — Philip Adolphe Klier • Born — 1845 • Birthplace — Offenbach, German Confederation • Died — 27 March 1911 • Place of death — Rangoon, British Burma • Occupation — Photographer, optician, watchmaker • Known for — Photographs of 19th-century Burma

• Illustration — Portrait of an unknown man, by Philip Klier, Rangoon, British Burma

After having emigrated from Germany, Klier first settled in Moulmein (now Mawlamyine, Mon State), the first capital of British Burma, in 1865, and started to work as a watchmaker in a small community of German watchmakers, opticians and photographers. Having acquired the technical skills of photography under the given climatic conditions, he set up his first studio in Moulmein.

After 1880, Klier and his family moved to the capital Rangoon, where he operated from his studio in Signal Pagoda Road. There, he found better chances for selling his photographs used on mailable postcards that he had printed in Germany with the inscription “Copyright’ P. Klier, Rangoon”. The customers were mainly British and other foreign officers, businessmen and visitors. For five years after 1885, Klier temporarily entered a partnership with J. Jackson, an established British studio photographer, but after that, he continued working on his own. After 1906, some of Klier's photographs were copied by the company D. A. Ahuja, (or T. N. Ahuja, Rangoon), and sometimes sold as hand-coloured postcards. In 1907, P. Klier & Co sold photographic supplies to the growing demand by photographers and advertised ‘[t]he largest selection of views of Burma and pictorial postcards’ in Thacker's Indian Directory. The 1908 edition of Thomas Cook & Sons Burma. Information for travellers landing at Rangoon printed eight out of a total of fifteen photographs by "Messrs. P. Klier & Co", whose studio was conveniently located in a building next to Thomas Cook's travel agency. After Klier's death, his company continued working at different locations in Rangoon. In 1912, Klier & Co. started to include Burmese curio sales of silverware, wood, and ivory carvings. The company was listed in commercial archives until 1920.

• Illustration — A Burmese lady, hand-colored lithography after an albumen print The wide range of Klier's images documents his strong interest in both colonial British as well as Burmese life and culture. Many of his photographs were printed as albumen prints, the most popular photographic printing technique of the late 19th century. As the aesthetic styles of portrait photography developed, he changed his approach to presenting the subjects of his portraits: the two early portraits of young English ladies in the style of cabinet cards, taken around 1894 and archived at the National Portrait Gallery in London, or the portrait of an unknown man archived together with Klier's business card attest to the portrait style of the late 1890s. They stand in contrast with his later portraits, such as the picture of a Burmese lady on a hand-colored photoprint on postcard after an original albumen print of 1907, with a blurred background and crisp details of her person, clothes and jewellery in the foreground. Apart from photographic portraits of Europeans and scenes of busy areas of Rangoon, Klier also carefully staged and recorded portraits of Burmese people in traditional attire, such as a princess and her following or a chief from the princely Shan States in eastern Burma shown below. Besides studio portraits for individual customers, Klier showed an interest in everyday street photography, as by documenting traditional musicians or audiences watching the popular Burmese puppet shows (Yoke thé) of the times. Other scenes show Burmese at work, such as elephants and their keepers at work in timber yards or on paddy boats carrying rice. Klier also took photographs of famous buildings, including Burma's most important religious monument, the Shwedagon Pagoda or the great mosque in Rangoon.

• Illustration — Burmese couple in the 1890s • Illustration — Burmese musicians at the Shwedagon Pagoda • Illustration — A traditional Burmese puppet show • Illustration — Burmese monks and novices, 1907 • Illustration — Detail of Burmese Paddy boat, 1907 • Illustration — Elephants at work in Rangoon, 1907 • Illustration — Shan princess and followers, 1907 • Illustration — A Shan chief, sitting on a cushion