Drawn From light will bring forth the syncretic culture of India, through some of the earliest surviving photographic images of the Indian sub-continent. The exhibition, to begin from August 19, will be based on two previously held exhibitions — Allegory and Illusion: Early Portrait Photography from South Asia at the Rubin Museum (New York, 2013) and Unveiling India, the Early lensmen (1850-1910) at the Royal Museum of Fine Arts (Brussels, 2013-14).
The exhibition, organised by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) in collaboration with The Alkazi Foundation for the Arts for the first time in India, will display various aspects of the earliest history of photography of India and its neighbours.
One part of the exhibition will display the works of early photographers, from Alexander Greenlaw’s photographs of the ruins of the Vijayanagara kingdom (today known as Hampi) in South India to Dr John Murray’s systematically captured buildings in and around Agra. His images today are recognised as the first-ever photographs of the Taj Mahal.
The other part will showcase the dynamics of portraiture in the sub-continent. A series of cityscapes and portraits will highlight the life of people in their socio-cultural setting and illustrate how the cultural history of India was deeply aligned with the representation of its people. The exhibition will showcase the vintage and rare works through a display of early wax paper negatives, albumen prints and postcards.