Raghubir Singh (photographer)
Raghubir Singh | |
---|---|
Born | Jaipur, India | 22 October 1942
Died | 18 April 1999 New York, US | (aged 56)
Occupation | Photographer |
Years active | 1965–1999 |
Notable work | Ganga: Sacred River of India (1974) River of Colour: The India of Raghubir Singh (1998) |
Style | Documentary, street |
Website | www |
Raghubir Singh (1942–1999) was an Indian
Singh belonged to a tradition of small-format
Singh published 14 well-received books on the
Early life and education
Singh was born into an aristocratic
After his schooling at
Career
Photographer
Singh first moved to
By the mid-1960s,
After a decade of travelling along the Ganges, Singh published his first book Ganges in 1974, with an introduction by Eric Newby.[10] Though his early work was inspired by Henri Cartier-Bresson's documentary-style photographs of India, he chose colour as his medium, responding to the vivid colours of India, and over time adapted western techniques to Indian aesthetics.[13]
In the 1970s, Singh moved to Paris and over the following three decades, through rigorous training and exposure, he created a series of portfolios of colour photography on India. His style was influenced by Mughal painting and Rajasthani miniature paintings, whose individual sections maintain their autonomy within the overall frame.[12]: 223
In his early work, Singh focused on the geographic and social anatomy of cities and regions in India. His work on Bombay in the early 1990s marks a turning point in his stylistic development.
Singh published over 14 books. In the last of these, A Way into India (2002), published posthumously, the Ambassador car in which he travelled on all his journeys across Indian since 1957 becomes a camera obscura. Singh uses its doors and windshield to frame and divide his photographs. In the accompanying text, John Baldessari compares Singh to Orson Welles for his juxtaposition of near and far and to Mondrian for his fragmentation of space.[9][14]
Teacher
In addition to his photographic work, Singh taught in New York at the School of Visual Arts, Columbia University and Cooper Union.[10]
Awards
- 1983: Padma Shri, by Government of India[15]
- 1986–1987: First Fellowship in Photography of the National Museum of Photography, Bradford[citation needed]
- 1999: Mother Jones Lifetime Achievement Award[citation needed]
- 2001: Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh Award (posthumously)[citation needed]
Personal life
In 1972, he married Anne de Henning, also a photographer, and the couple had a daughter, Devika Singh, who is curator at the Tate Modern and holds a position at Cambridge University.
Singh died on 18 April 1999 of a heart attack.[16] Upon his death, the art critic Max Kozloff wrote, "If you can imagine what a Rajput miniaturist could have learned from Henri Cartier-Bresson, you'll have a glimmer of Raghubir Singh's aesthetic."[17]
Controversy
On 3 December 2017, artist Jaishri Abichandani organized a protest outside the Met Breuer, where Singh's "Modernism on the Ganges" opened as an exhibit on 11 October 2017. She accused Singh of having sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s while on a trip to India where she accompanied him as an assistant.[18] She claims to have been under the impression that the trip was a professional one, and that she made her non-consent known.[19][20]
Publications
- Ganga: Sacred River of India (1974), Perennial, Bombay
- Calcutta (1975), (preface by Joseph Lelyveld), Perennial, Bombay
- Rajasthan (1981), (preface by Satyajit Ray) Thames and Hudson, London and New York; Chêne, Paris; Perennial, Bombay. ISBN 0-500-54070-5.
- Kumbh Mela (1981), Arthaud, Paris; Perennia, Bombay
- Kashmir: Garden of the Himalayas (1983), Thames and Hudson, London and New York; Perennia, Bombay
- Kerala: The Spice Coast of India (1986), Thames and Hudson, London and New York; Chêne, Paris. ISBN 0-500-24125-2.
- Banaras: The Sacred City of India (1987), Thames and Hudson, London and New York Chêne, Paris
- Calcutta: the home and the street (1988), Thames and Hudson, London and New York; Chêne, Paris. ISBN 0-500-24133-3.
- The Ganges (1992), Thames and Hudson, London and New York; Aperture, New York (Japanese, German and Italian editions)ASIN B01FKS7IC4.
- Bombay: Gateway to India (1994), (conversation with V.S. Naipaul), Aperture, New York; Perennia, Bombay. ISBN 0-89381-583-7.
- The Grand Trunk Road (1995), Aperture, New York; Perennia, Bombay
- Tamil Nadu (1997), (preface by R.K. Narayan), DAP, New York. ISBN 1-881616-66-5
- River of Colour: The India of Raghubir Singh (1998, 2000, 2006), Phaido, London (2000 French and German editions). ISBN 0-7148-3996-5.
- A Way into India (2002), Phaido, London. ISBN 9780714842110.
Exhibitions
In 1998, the Art Institute of Chicago organized a retrospective exhibition of his work, which was still on display at the time of his death. The book River of Colour was published on the occasion of this exhibition.[9]
In February 1999, what had been intended as a mid-career retrospective exhibition of his work opened at the
Solo exhibitions
- 1983 Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown
- 1983 Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego
- 1984 Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design
- 1984 Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge
- 1984 Duke University, Durham
- 1985 University of California Museum, Berkeley
- 1985 Pace McGill Gallery, New York
- 1987 Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol
- 1987 National Museum of Photography, Bradford
- 1989 Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC[10]
- 1991 Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, Arizona
- 1992 Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, Texas
- 1992 Sewall Art Gallery, Houston, Texas
- 1992 Piramal Gallery, National Center for Performing Arts, Bombay
- 1994 Piramal Gallery, National Center for Performing Arts, Bombay
- 1994 Burden Gallery, Aperture Foundation, New York
- 1995 Max Mueller Bhawan, New Delhi
- 1998 Feature Inc., New York
- 1999 National Gallery of Modern Art, Bombay
- 1999 National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
- 1999 The Art Institute of Chicago
- 2001 The Museum of Photography, Tel-Hai
- 2002 Foundation Querini Stampalia, Venice
- 2003 Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
- 2004 Sepia Gallery, New York
- 2005 National Museum of Photography, Bradford
- 2005 Galerie f5.6, Munich
- 2005 Paris Photo
- 2006 Lille 3000: Colysée de Lambersart
- 2006 Lille 3000: Maison Folie, Wazemmes
- 2008 The Gallery at Hermès, New York and Berlin (with Dayanita Singh)[21]
- 2017 The Met Breuer, New York
Public collections
- Tate Modern, London
- Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA)[9]
- Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York[9]
- Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia
- Art Institute of Chicago[9]
- Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC
- Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
- Museum of Modern Art, Oxford
- Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato
- Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown
- National Media Museum, Bradford
- Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography[9]
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA)
Notes
- ^ "Raghubir Singh". Britannica.com. 14 April 2023.
- ^ a b c d "Tribute: The colours of India". Frontline. Vol. 16, no. 10. 8–21 May 1999. Archived from the original on 2 June 2002.
{{cite news}}
: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ ISBN 0-415-97665-0.[vague]
- ^ "Chess Players, Banaras Floods, 1967". Metropolitan Museum of Art website.
- ^ Holland Cotter, "Raghubir Singh: Retrospective", New York Times, 26 November 2004.
- ^ "A shot in time". Indian Seminar. 2003.
- ^ a b Doyle, p. 117
- ^ "Raghubir Singh retrospective in New York". 3 January 2007. Archived from the original on 26 January 2013.
- ^ a b c d e f g "A Way into India". The Globalist. Archived from the original on 11 June 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f g Bruce Palling, "Obituary: Raghubir Singh", The Independent, 22 April 1999.
- ^ a b Shoma Chaudhury, "Profile: Prisms of Imagination", Outlook, 8 February 1999.
- ^ ISBN 81-8028-002-0.
- ISBN 1-58115-409-7.
- ^ Sarah Boxer, "Final India's Ambassador, a Shiny Supermodel", The New York Times, 29 June 2003.
- ^ "Padma Awards". Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.
- ^ Jon Thurber, "Raghubir Singh; Photographer Captured Color of Life in India", Los Angeles Times, 24 April 1999.
- ^ Doyle, p. 114
- ^ Vartanian, Hrag (5 December 2017). "Artist Alleges Raghubir Singh Assaulted Her, Stages #MeToo Performance at His Retrospective". Hyperallergic. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
- ^ Frank, Priscilla (4 December 2017). "Artist Stages Protest At Met Museum Where Her Alleged Abuser's Work Is On View". HuffPost. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
- ^ "HuffPost is now a part of Verizon Media". HuffPost. 4 December 2017.
- ^ "Raghubir Singh: Biography & Links". Artnet.
References
- Brougher, Kerry; Russell Ferguson (2001). Open city: street photographs since 1950. Museum of Modern Art Oxford. ISBN 9781901352122.
- Freedman, Ariela (2005). "On the Ganges side of modernism: Raghubir Singh, Amitav Ghosh, and the postcolonial modern." In Laura Doyle and Laura A. Winkiel, eds, Geomodernisms: race, modernism, modernity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34607-X.
External links
- Official website
- Singh Biography and works at Artnet
- An Encounter with Raghubir Singh at The Telegraph (Kolkata)