RAGHUBIR SINGH – BOMBAY
2017-12-04Although he lived in Hong Kong, Paris, London and spent significant time in New York throughout his career, Raghubir Singh (1942-1999) dedicated his career to photographing his native India. Singh worked at the intersection of western modernism and traditional South Asian perspectives. He was influenced by the work of Henri Cartier-Bresson, whom he met in Jaipur in 1966, befriended William Gedney to whom he dedicated his second book on Calcutta (a small exhibition of Gedney’s work in India will accompany the exhibition), and traveled and photographed with Lee Friedlander. He pioneered color photography at a time when it was unpopular in the west, using it to great advantage to show the vibrant intensity of the country’s culture, traditions, and religion. Today Singh’s portrait of India during pivotal decades of social and political change is considered unique and unmatched.
Singh photographed the city of Bombay at a transitional point for the Indian economy. Bombay, the country’s economic capital stood as the metaphor for the broader changes that had begun across the country. Singh’s use of reflections are a revealing expression of this change.
Opposite – Showroom at Kemp’s Corner, Bombay, Maharashtra, 1990
Exhibition runs through to December 9th, 2017
Howard Greenberg Gallery
41 East 57th Street
New York
10022 NY
