Steidlville

Raghubir Singh

Raghubir Singh is considered a pioneer of color photography. In the 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. His photographs, acclaimed for their organization of space, reflect the multiple aspects of contemporary India. In his early work Singh focused on the geographic and social anatomy of cities and regions of India. His work on Bombay in the early 1990s marks a turning point in his stylistic development; at the contact of the metropolis his visual language acquires a new complexity. In addition to his photographic work, Singh taught in New York at the School of Visual Arts, Columbia University and Cooper Union. In 1998 the Art Institute of Chicago organized a retrospective exhibition of his work which was still on show at the time of his death. The book River of Colour was published on the occasion of this exhibition.