 Image credit Albert Thomas Watson Penn, Toda-woman, Nilgiri Hills, 1870-80, Ausschnitt
© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ethnologisches Museum  event venue
Museum für FotografieStaatliche Museen zu Berlin Jebensstr. 2 10623 Berlin Germany T +49 (0)30 3186 4825 Tues-Sun 10 am - 6 pm, Thu 10 am - 10 pm social| Published | August 10, 2012 at 05:44pm | | Seen | 1403 times |
ExhibitionThe Colonial Eye. Early Portrait Photography in India Museum für Fotografie, Photography, Berlin, Germany
Friday July 20, 2012 - Sunday October 21, 2012 - Event ended. One of the most comprehensive and significant collections of portrait photography from India is on exhibit for the first time. The collection of the Ethnological Museum was originally thought to be lost during World War II, only returning to Berlin beginning in the 1990s. Now, around 300 photographs from the second half of the nineteenth century offer a comprehensive overview of portrait photography from the Indian subcontinent.Albert Thomas Watson Penn
Bourne & Shepherd
John Burke
Francis Frith
Westfield & Co
Edward Taurines
A.W.A. Platé & Co
Shepherd & Robertson
Samuel Bourne
W.L.H. Skeen & Co
In addition to pictures by renowned photographers and studios such as Samuel Bourne, Shepherd & Robertson, A.T.W. Penn, and John Burke, works by lesser known artists are also on display. Popular and unexpectedly diverse ethnographic photography of the time stands in contrast to stylised street shots of artisans, as well as portraits of nobility, including Islamic princes and princesses, Maharajas, and clan leaders, taken in their own palaces or in artfully set studio scenes.
One unifying aspect of many early portraits is a particularly European view - "The Colonial Eye". In the second half of the nineteenth century, in the name of science and colonialism, the land and its inhabitants were to be apprehended through observation and cataloguing, analysation and measurement. The fascination with India was especially evoked by the strange-looking indigenous peoples and the caste-system, as well as the splendour of the Indian nobility and the austere life of ascetics.
An exhibition organized by the Art Library, the Ethnological Museum, and the Museum of Asian Art.
Presented by:
Art Library - Collection of Photography
Ethnological Museum
Museum of Asian Art
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