Homai Vyarawalla (1913–2012) was India’s first female photojournalist. This exhibition, the first on Vyarawalla outside of India, presents her photography from the late 1930s to 1970, and narrates her extraordinary life with a biographical film and ephemera from her career.
Homai Vyarawalla documented key events from the generation around Independence, including the historic meeting of Gandhi and the Congress Committee on the 1947 plan for partition, and she recorded the visits to India of world leaders and dignitaries, including Queen Elizabeth, Jacqueline Kennedy, Ho Chi Minh, and Zhou Enlai. She was revered in India and her 2012 death at age 98 generated tributes around the world. The exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Alkazi Foundation for the Arts in New Delhi.
Beth Citron was previously the curator of modern and contemporary art at the Rubin Museum of Art. Her exhibitions for the Rubin Museum included Genesis Breyer P-Orridge: Try to Altar Everything (2016), Francesco Clemente: Inspired by India (2014), Witness at a Crossroads: Photographer Marc Riboud in Asia (2014), and the three-part exhibition series Modernist Art from India (2011-13). She completed a PhD in the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania, and has taught in the Art History Department at New York University, from which she also earned a BA in Fine Arts.
Travel for this exhibition was supported by Rasika and Girish Reddy, and The Pierre New York, A Taj Hotel.
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