Nemai Ghosh
Satyajit Ray and Beyond
Photographer Nemai Ghosh has been the quintessential Satyajit Ray biographer through his decades-long close association with the master filmmaker. Over a lifetime of work, he has built up a vast and valuable photographic archive, now housed at Delhi Art Gallery.
To mark the occasion of the centenary of Indian cinema this year, the gallery is pleased to present the first showing of the Nemai Ghosh Archive: Nemai Ghosh: Satyajit Ray and Beyond. While justly associated primarily with photographing the films and the person of the auteur Satyajit Ray, the exhibition attempts to bring to light his lesser-known but equally extensive documentation of cinema, both mainstream Hindi cinema from Bombay as well as regional Bengai cinema. This exhibition brings together for the first time this rich body of work, as a tribute to the individual filmmakers, including Satyajit Ray, Indian cinema in its centennial year, as well as the power of the photograph to witness, record and tell stories.
Curated by Pramod Kumar KG, the exhibition presents several iconic and many never-before-seen images of actors, scenes, sets and locations during the filming of Satyajit Ray’s films as well as the filmmaker at work, taken over a twenty-five year period, as well as an array of images of regional films and actors.
The accompanying book on the exhibition has essays by Pramod Kumar KG, Sabeena Gadihoke and Jai Arjun Singh, beside a timeline of Nemai Ghosh’s career, as well as an array of images marking his tryst with cinema. These include the 250 specially selected images that form the focus of the exhibition, and are accompanied by detailed captions. All prints are on archival paper and are part of an edition of six each.
Through this celebration of Nemai Ghosh’s work with cinema, Delhi Art Gallery is pleased to showcase a section of this archive, an invaluable part of India’s cinematic and photographic history. Acquired in 2006, the nearly 1,20,000 images have been digitised and form part of Delhi Art Gallery’s extensive archives. This, its first exhibition that explores the medium of photography, adds to its ongoing engagement with exploring and documenting the reservoir of the history and richness of Indian art.
is extensive work on cinema, on the occasion of 100 years of Indian cinema in 2013.