Exhibition (New York, '98) Home Page
NEW: VIRTUAL EXHIBITIONS: New York 1998 (partially constructed) & San Francisco 2000 (almost complete)

  photograph of three children at a window, Udaipur, India, 1950's

Photographing India
1942-1978
the struggle for independence
the casualties of partition
the country and the people

by
Sunil Janah

August 15 - September 25, 1998

Gallery At 678

New York


This exhibition includes photographs from 1939-1978, with special emphasis on Janah's early work and on his political evolution in India's turbulent 'forties.

Please see the Index and the Introduction to this exhibition. Both are on this page, below .

INDEX (Exhibition, NY '98)

Gallery at 678, with part of Bengal section in foreground Gallery At 678 is located at:
678 Broadway, 2nd Floor, between Great Jones & Bond (3rd & 2nd) Streets,
New York, NY 10012.
Tel: 212-260-0867 
Fax: 212-982-3681

Photographing India, with Bengal panels in foreground, Gallery At 678, Aug 1998

(photo by Dr. Brian Watson)

More gallery shots may be seen in   Scenes from the Exhibition

Please read Ram Rahman's Introduction to this Exhibition (below).

Gandhi addressing a meeting in Calcutta

 

Sunil Janah

Photographing India

1942-1978

INTRODUCTION TO THIS EXHIBITION

The photographs made by Sunil Janah during the three decades represented in this exhibition were taken during a period of intense turmoil in the history of modern India.   Janah is unusual as a photographer, because he was also an active political activist and had a close interaction with many of the great leaders of the struggle against imperialism.   His sensitivity to the fight for survival of the common man, combined with his keen knowledge of art, sculpture and dance, can be seen in the huge body of work he made outside his political involvement.  (Cont'd. on above right.)

His work has been an intimate part of the lives of the generation of politicians, artists and writers of the 1940's and 1950's, particularly those involved in the IPTA (Indian People's Theatre Association) and the PWA (Progressive Writers' Association).   Janah's work is the most important visual document of the period.

It has never appeared in its entirety in book form, and has been inaccessible for decades. Many of the photographs shown here have never been published or exhibited before.   Most of the prints had been made by the photographer himself over various periods of time, from the forties till the present.

- Ram Rahman

See also the Curator's Note by Ram Rahman, the Context to Exhibits (Section Texts) by Sunil Janah and the Virtual Exhibition - NY '98.

Note: The Virtual Exhibition incorporates all the section texts. However, the illustrations (exhibition panels) are at present only partially constructed. The Land and People section is almost complete. For other sections, see also the Virtual Exhibition, San Francisco, 2000.

The VE (SF 2000) is at present complementary to the VE (NY '98) in that it has all of its sections complete save for its Land and People section.

--   website, page design, coding, and text (except where attributed):     © Arjun Janah 1998-2000  

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