Raghubir Singh (1942–1999) was an Indian

photographer A photographer (the Greek language, Greek φῶς (''phos''), meaning "light", and γραφή (''graphê''), meaning "drawing, writing", together meaning "drawing with light") is a person who makes photographs. Duties and types of photographe ...

, most known for his landscapes and documentary-style photographs of the people of India. He was a self-taught photographer who worked in India and lived in Paris, London and New York. During his career he worked with ''

National Geographic Magazine ''National Geographic'' (formerly the ''National Geographic Magazine'', sometimes branded as NAT GEO) is a popular American monthly magazine published by National Geographic Partners. Known for its photojournalism, it is one of the most widely ...

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...

'' and ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, to ...

''. In the early 1970s, he was one of the first photographers to reinvent the use of color at a time when color photography was still a marginal art form. Singh belonged to a tradition of small-format

street photography Street photography (also sometimes called candid photography) is photography conducted for art or enquiry that features unmediated chance encounters and random incidents within public places. Although there is a difference between street and ca ...

, working in color, that to him, represented the intrinsic value of Indian aesthetics. According to his 2004 retrospective his "documentary-style vision was neither sugarcoated, nor abject, nor controllingly omniscient". Deeply influenced by

modernism Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

, he liberally took inspiration from Rajasthani miniatures,

Mughal painting Mughal painting is a style of painting on paper confined to miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniatures either as book illustrations or as single works to be kept in albums (muraqqa), from the territory of the Mughal Empire in South Asia. It e ...

s and Bengal, a place where he thought western modernist ideas and vernacular

Indian art Indian art consists of a variety of art forms, including painting, sculpture, pottery, and textile arts such as woven silk. Geographically, it spans the entire Indian subcontinent, including what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, N ...

were fused for the first time, as reflected in the works of the

Bengal school The Bengal School of Art, commonly referred as Bengal School, was an art movement and a style of Indian painting that originated in Bengal, primarily Kolkata and Shantiniketan, and flourished throughout the Indian subcontinent, during the Britis ...

and the humanism of filmmaker Satyajit Ray. "Beauty, nature,

humanism Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "humani ...

and spirituality were the cornerstones of

Indian culture Indian culture is the heritage of social norms, ethical values, traditional customs, belief systems, political systems, artifacts and technologies that originated in or are associated with the ethno-linguistically diverse India. The term al ...

" for him and became the bedrock for his work. Doyle, p. 117 Singh published 14 well-received books on the

Ganges The Ganges ( ) (in India: Ganga ( ); in Bangladesh: Padma ( )). "The Ganges Basin, known in India as the Ganga and in Bangladesh as the Padma, is an international river to which India, Bangladesh, Nepal and China are the riparian states." is ...

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

Benares Varanasi (; ; also Banaras or Benares (; ), and Kashi.) is a city on the Ganges river in northern India that has a central place in the traditions of pilgrimage, death, and mourning in the Hindu world. * * * * The city has a syncretic tr ...

, his native

Rajasthan Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwestern si ...

Grand Trunk Road The Grand Trunk Road (formerly known as Uttarapath, Sarak-e-Azam, Shah Rah-e-Azam, Badshahi Sarak, and Long Walk) is one of Asia's oldest and longest major roads. For at least 2,500 years it has linked Central Asia to the Indian subcontinent. ...

, and the

Hindustan Ambassador The Hindustan Ambassador is an automobile manufactured by Hindustan Motors of India from 1957 to 2014, with improvements and changes over its production lifetime. The Ambassador was based on the Morris Oxford series III model, first made by Mor ...

car. Today, his work is part of the permanent collections of the

Art Institute of Chicago The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago's Grant Park, founded in 1879, is one of the oldest and largest art museums in the world. Recognized for its curatorial efforts and popularity among visitors, the museum hosts approximately 1.5 mill ...

, the

Metropolitan Museum of Art The Metropolitan Museum of Art of New York City, colloquially "the Met", is the largest art museum in the Americas. Its permanent collection contains over two million works, divided among 17 curatorial departments. The main building at 1000 ...

and

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York and the

Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography The is an art museum concentrating on photography. As the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, it was founded by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, and is in Meguro-ku, a short walk from Ebisu station in southwest Tokyo. The museum also ...

, amongst others.

Early life and education

Singh was born into an aristocratic

Rajput Rajput (from Sanskrit ''raja-putra'' 'son of a king') is a large multi-component cluster of castes, kin bodies, and local groups, sharing social status and ideology of genealogical descent originating from the Indian subcontinent. The term Ra ...

family in 1942 in Jaipur. His grandfather was Commander-in-chief of the

Jaipur Jaipur (; Hindi Language, Hindi: ''Jayapura''), formerly Jeypore, is the List of state and union territory capitals in India, capital and largest city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Rajasthan. , the city had a pop ...

Armed Forces, while his father was a

Thakur Thakur may refer to: * Thakur (title), a feudal title and surname used by erstwhile nobility of India * Thakar (tribe), an Adivasi tribe of Maharashtra, India * Thakur village, a residential locality in Mumbai, India * Thakur Anoop Singh (born 198 ...

or feudal landowner of

Khetri Khetri Nagar is the town in Jhunjhunu district of Rajasthan in India. It is a part of the Shekhawati region. Khetri consists of two towns, "Khetri Town" founded by Raja Khet Singhji Nirwan and "Khetri Nagar" which is about 10 km away from ...

(now in

Jhunjhunu district Jhunjhunu district is a district of the Indian state of Rajasthan in northern India. The city of Jhunjhunu is the district headquarters. District location The district falls within Shekhawati region, and is bounded on the northeast and east by ...

, Rajasthan). After independence, his family saw a dwindling of its fortune.Bruce Palling,
Obituary: Raghubir Singh
, ''The Independent'', 22 April 1999. As a schoolboy, he discovered ''Beautiful Jaipur'',

Cartier-Bresson Henri Cartier-Bresson (; 22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as cap ...

's little-known book published in 1948, which inspired his interest in photography. After his schooling at St. Xavier's School, Jaipur, he joined the

Hindu College Hindu College may refers to several colleges around the world, including: India *Dharmamurthi Rao Bhahadur Calavala Cunnan Chetty's Hindu College, Chennai, Tamil Nadu * Gobardanga Hindu College, West Bengal * Gokul Das Hindu Girls College, Moradab ...

(

Delhi Delhi, officially the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi, is a city and a union territory of India containing New Delhi, the capital of India. Straddling the Yamuna river, primarily its western or right bank, Delhi shares borders w ...

) but dropped out in his first year. It was here that he took a serious interest in photography.

Career

Photographer

Singh first moved to

to begin a career in the tea industry, as had his elder brother before him. This turned out to be unsuccessful, but by this time, he had started to take photographs. In Calcutta, Singh met the historian R. P. Gupta, who later contributed text for his first book ''Ganges'' (1974). Singh was gradually introduced to a circle of city artists who deeply influenced his later work, especially the

realism Realism, Realistic, or Realists may refer to: In the arts *Realism (arts), the general attempt to depict subjects truthfully in different forms of the arts Arts movements related to realism include: *Classical Realism *Literary realism, a move ...

of filmmaker

Satyajit Ray Satyajit Ray (; 2 May 1921 – 23 April 1992) was an Indian director, screenwriter, documentary filmmaker, author, essayist, lyricist, magazine editor, illustrator, calligrapher, and music composer. One of the greatest auteurs of fil ...

, who later designed the cover of his first book and wrote the introduction to his Rajasthan book. This also set a precedent for literary input in his future books, as in the coming years the writer V. S. Naipaul conducted a dialogue with him for the preface to his book ''Bombay'' (1994), while R. K. Narayan wrote the introduction to ''Tamil Nadu'' (1997). Doyle, p. 117 By the mid-1960s,

Life Magazine ''Life'' was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, ''Life'' was a wide-ranging weekly general-interest ma ...

had published eight pages of his photographs about student unrest. He later moved to

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

and started doing photo features for ''

''... After a decade of travelling along the

, Singh published his first book ''Ganges'' in 1974, with an introduction by

Eric Newby George Eric Newby (6 December 1919 – 20 October 2006) was an English travel writer. His works include '' A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush'', '' The Last Grain Race'' and ''A Small Place in Italy''. Early life Newby was born in Barnes, London, ...

. Though his early work was inspired by

Henri Cartier-Bresson Henri Cartier-Bresson (; 22 August 1908 – 3 August 2004) was a French humanist photographer considered a master of candid photography, and an early user of 35mm film. He pioneered the genre of street photography, and viewed photography as cap ...

'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 Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

. In the 1970s, Singh moved to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

and over the following three decades, through rigorous training and exposure, he created a series of portfolios of

colour photography Color photography is photography that uses media capable of capturing and reproducing colors. By contrast, black-and-white or gray-monochrome photography records only a single channel of luminance (brightness) and uses media capable only of ...

on India. His style was influenced by

and Rajasthani miniature paintings, whose individual sections maintain their autonomy within the overall frame. 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 An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

car in which he travelled on all his journeys across Indian since 1957 becomes a

camera obscura A camera obscura (; ) is a darkened room with a aperture, small hole or lens at one side through which an image is 3D projection, projected onto a wall or table opposite the hole. ''Camera obscura'' can also refer to analogous constructions su ...

. Singh uses its doors and windshield to frame and divide his photographs. In the accompanying text,

John Baldessari John Anthony Baldessari (June 17, 1931 – January 2, 2020) was an American conceptual artist known for his work featuring found photography and appropriated images. He lived and worked in Santa Monica and Venice, California. Initially a painter, ...

compares Singh to Orson Welles for his juxtaposition of near and far and to Mondrian for his fragmentation of space.

Teacher

In addition to his photographic work, Singh taught in

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

at the

School of Visual Arts The School of Visual Arts New York City (SVA NYC) is a private for-profit art school in New York City. It was founded in 1947 and is a member of the Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design. History This school was started by ...

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

and

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

Awards

* 1983:

Padma Shri Padma Shri (IAST: ''padma śrī''), also spelled Padma Shree, is the fourth-highest Indian honours system, civilian award of the Republic of India, after the Bharat Ratna, the Padma Vibhushan and the Padma Bhushan. Instituted on 2 January 1954, ...

, by

Government of India The Government of India (ISO: ; often abbreviated as GoI), known as the Union Government or Central Government but often simply as the Centre, is the national government of the Republic of India, a federal democracy located in South Asia, c ...

* 1986–1987: First Fellowship in Photography of the National Museum of Photography, Bradford * 1999: ''

Mother Jones Mary G. Harris Jones (1837 (baptized) – November 30, 1930), known as Mother Jones from 1897 onwards, was an Irish-born American schoolteacher and dressmaker who became a prominent union organizer, community organizer, and activist. She h ...

'' Lifetime Achievement Award * 2001: Maharaja Sawai Ram Singh Award (posthumously)

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. Upon his death, the art critic

Max Kozloff Max Kozloff (born 1933) is an American art historian, art critic of modern art and photographer. He has been art editor at ''The Nation'', and Executive Editor of ''Artforum''. His essay "American Painting During the Cold War" is of particular im ...

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."

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. She claims to have been under the impression that the trip was a professional one, and that she made her non-consent known.

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. . * ''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. . * ''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. . * ''The Ganges ''(1992), Thames and Hudson, London and New York; Aperture, New York (Japanese, German and Italian editions). * ''Bombay: Gateway to India'' (1994), (conversation with V.S. Naipaul), Aperture, New York; Perennia, Bombay. . * ''The Grand Trunk Road ''(1995), Aperture, New York; Perennia, Bombay * ''Tamil Nadu'' (1997), (preface by R.K. Narayan), DAP, New York. * ''River of Colour: The India of Raghubir Singh'' (1998, 2000, 2006), Phaido, London (2000 French and German editions). . * ''A Way into India'' (2002), Phaido, London. .

Exhibitions

In 1998, the

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. In February 1999, what had been intended as a mid-career retrospective exhibition of his work opened at the

National Gallery of Modern Art National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament House ...

, after showing at the

Bon Marché ''Bon'', also spelled Bön () and also known as Yungdrung Bon (, "eternal Bon"), is a Tibetan culture, Tibetan religious tradition with many similarities to Tibetan Buddhism and also many unique features.Samuel 2012, pp. 220-221. Bon initiall ...

in Paris and the Art Institute of Chicago.Shoma Chaudhury,
Profile: Prisms of Imagination
, ''Outlook'', 8 February 1999.

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 The Arthur M. Sackler Gallery is an art museum of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., focusing on Asian art. The Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art together form the National Museum of Asian Art in the United States. Th ...

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, Washington DC * 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

, New Delhi * 1999 The

* 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 Hermès International S.A., or simply Hermès ( , ), is a French luxury design house established in 1837. It specializes in leather goods, lifestyle accessories, home furnishings, perfumery, jewelry, watches and ready-to-wear. Its logo, since ...

, New York and Berlin (with

Dayanita Singh Dayanita Singh (born 18 March 1961) is an Indian photographer whose primary format is the book. She has published fourteen books. Singh's art reflects and expands on the ways in which people relate to photographic images. Her later works, draw ...

) * 2017 The Met Breuer, New York

Public collections

Tate Modern Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It is ...

, London *

, New York (MoMA) *

, New York *

Philadelphia Museum of Art The Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMoA) is an art museum originally chartered in 1876 for the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia. The main museum building was completed in 1928 on Fairmount, a hill located at the northwest end of the Benjamin Fr ...

, Philadelphia *

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is an art museum beside the National Mall, in Washington, D.C., the United States. The museum was initially endowed during the 1960s with the permanent art collection of Joseph H. Hirshhorn. It was des ...

, Washington DC *

, Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC *

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is a modern and contemporary art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art, and was ...

Museum of Modern Art, Oxford Modern Art Oxford is an art gallery established in 1965 in Oxford, England. From 1965 to 2002, it was called The Museum of Modern Art, Oxford. The gallery presents exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. It has a national and internationa ...

Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci Centro per l'arte contemporanea Luigi Pecci (Centre for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci) is a contemporary art centre sited in Viale della Repubblica in Prato, Tuscany, Italy. The centre is devoted to exhibiting art produced during the past few decad ...

, Prato *

Williams College Museum of Art The Williams College Museum of Art (WCMA) is a college-affiliated art museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts. It is located on the campus of Williams College, and is close to the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and the Clark Ar ...

, Williamstown *

National Media Museum The National Science and Media Museum (formerly The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television, 1983–2006 and then the National Media Museum, 2006–2017), located in Bradford, West Yorkshire, is part of the national Science Museum G ...

, Bradford *

Los Angeles County Museum of Art The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile, Los Angeles, California, Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Pa ...

(LACMA)

Notes

References

* * 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. .

External links

*

at ''

Artnet Artnet.com is an art market website. It is operated by Artnet Worldwide Corporation, which has headquarters in New York City, in the United States, and is owned by Artnet AG, a German publicly traded company based in Berlin that is listed on t ...

''
An Encounter with Raghubir Singh
at ''

The Telegraph (Kolkata) ''The Telegraph'' is an Indian English daily newspaper founded and continuously published in Kolkata since 7 July 1982. It is published by the ABP Group and the newspaper competes with ''The Times of India''. The newspaper is the eighth most-wid ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Singh, Raghubir 20th-century Indian photographers 1942 births 1999 deaths Artists from Jaipur Rajasthani people Travel photographers Landscape photographers School of Visual Arts faculty Columbia University faculty Cooper Union faculty Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts Street photographers Indian emigrants to the United States Indian nature photographers 20th-century Indian painters American male artists of Indian descent American male artists American artists Indian travel writers 20th-century Indian non-fiction writers Indian male writers Writers from Jaipur Photographers from Rajasthan