The Ambassador Man

In the 1970s, serious art and documentary photographers worked exclusively with black-and-white film. Colour was for amateurs and commercial...

In the 1970s, serious art and documentary photographers worked exclusively with black-and-white film. Colour was for amateurs and commercial shooters.

This mentality created a dilemma for Raghubir Singh8212;now acknowledged as a master8212;who used colour film to chronicle India. He felt that documenting Europe in black and white captured its post-World War II angst. However, doing the same in India, he knew, wouldn8217;t do justice to the vivid, multi-hued essence of the land and its people.

So when he began shooting with Kodachrome slide film, he wasn8217;t taken seriously. Friend and mentor, French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, once flipped through a couple of pages of Singh8217;s book, lost interest, and set it aside!

But that was then. His images have since been exhibited at the world8217;s most prestigious galleries. Now, the Smithsonian8217;s Arthur M Sackler Gallery in Washington is paying fresh tribute to Singh, who died of a heart attack in 1999, after publishing 12 books on India.

Until August 10, the gallery will display Singh8217;s famous Ambassador car series. The 48-picture retrospective is titled, 8216;Auto Focus: Raghubir Singh8217;s Way Into India8217;.

The car is a metaphor for Singh8217;s travels across India. The photographs were his way of acknowledging the role the Ambassador played in post-colonial India.

8220;It removes the timelessness of India and brings India firmly into the 20th century,8221; says Debra Diamond, assistant curator of South and South East Asian art at the Smithsonian8217;s National Museum of Asian Art.

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Singh elaborated on the car8217;s importance in a novella he was working on when he died suddenly at the age of 56. The framed passage is a prominent part of the exhibit: 8220;It is the people8217;s car, it is the politician8217;s car, India8217;s Rolls-Royce and stretch limousine all rolled into one solid, yet shaky, entity. Bulletproof and tricolour fluttering, it breezes by with prime ministers and presidents. With scratches, peeling paint and driven by drivers who spend the night in their cars, it has become a substantial part of the unknown town and a small part of the unacknowledged village.8221;