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Lot Essay
A pioneer of Indian photography, Raghu Rai was born in Jhang, a district of British India that became part of Pakistan after the partition of India in 1947. A civil engineer by training, he was encouraged by his brother to enter The Times’ weekly photo competition in London in 1965, which he went on to win. Shortly after, Rai began working as a photojournalist for The Statesman, and it was during his time there that his work caught the attention of Henri Cartier Bresson. Impressed by his skill, Bresson invited Rai to join Magnum Photos, the prestigious photographer's cooperative.
Rai has photographed in black and white throughout his life, and is known for his ability to portray intense emotion in his images. He is revered for his intimate depictions of daily life and the common man in India, and is especially known for his assiduous and in depth documentation of his subjects, whether people or events. Rai has decisively and obsessively captured India’s diversity and complexity, and its beauty and its ugliness, documenting the country's history and ever-changing social and cultural landscape. Rai has also documented well-known personalities at different times of their lives including the Dalai Lama since 1975, and Mother Teresa from the early 1970s till 1997 when she passed away. He was one of the first photographers to cover the aftermath of the Bhopal gas tragedy, one of the world’s worst industrial disasters in 1984, and also returned seventeen years later to photograph the despair of those who survived it, published in the book Exposure for Greenpeace International in 2002.
Rai was awarded the Padam Shri in 1971, and has served three times on the jury of the World Press Photo Award and twice on the jury of UNESCO’s International Photo Contest. He served as the director of photography at India Today between 1982 and 1992, and his photoessays have appeared in many of the world’s leading periodicals including TIME, LIFE, The New York Times, Newsweek, and The New Yorker.
Rai has photographed in black and white throughout his life, and is known for his ability to portray intense emotion in his images. He is revered for his intimate depictions of daily life and the common man in India, and is especially known for his assiduous and in depth documentation of his subjects, whether people or events. Rai has decisively and obsessively captured India’s diversity and complexity, and its beauty and its ugliness, documenting the country's history and ever-changing social and cultural landscape. Rai has also documented well-known personalities at different times of their lives including the Dalai Lama since 1975, and Mother Teresa from the early 1970s till 1997 when she passed away. He was one of the first photographers to cover the aftermath of the Bhopal gas tragedy, one of the world’s worst industrial disasters in 1984, and also returned seventeen years later to photograph the despair of those who survived it, published in the book Exposure for Greenpeace International in 2002.
Rai was awarded the Padam Shri in 1971, and has served three times on the jury of the World Press Photo Award and twice on the jury of UNESCO’s International Photo Contest. He served as the director of photography at India Today between 1982 and 1992, and his photoessays have appeared in many of the world’s leading periodicals including TIME, LIFE, The New York Times, Newsweek, and The New Yorker.