Representing his earliest documentary photography, these prints remain as apropos today as they were then. There is an acute absence of documentation of changing urban India in these two decades, particularly Delhi, Bombay and Calcutta, the three cities referenced in the title. This body of photographs serves as a chronicle of the cities' shifting nature, character and function. As testimony to the enduring value of his images, these records of urban life have immediacy, an ability to make the "past" contemporary to the viewer.

Primarily, however, these photographs are witness to the flux in the social and cultural landscape at that point; through the uniquely personal filter of images of the artist's self-portraits, friends, family and social milieu. In this exhibition, Pablo Bartholomew's is the floating, nomadic world of his teens, of psychedelic lifestyles and of his presence within what he refers to as "the first free-thinking generation after Independence" --a world he had personal exposure to as the son of Richard Bartholomew, preeminent art critic, curator, poet and photographer and mother, Rati Bartholomew, a well known personality in the theatre and literary circles in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. These photographs are notes from his diary enacting personal dialogs, which inadvertently connect to a universal, cross-generational ethos.

Oct 24 -- 14:30am-16:30am
The meeting room on the 8th floor in Wanbao Mansion, Wanbao Road 267# , Changsha, Hunan, China

Pablo Bartholomew

Pablo Bartholomew was born on December 18, 1955 in New Delhi, India.

Influenced greatly by his father, Richard Bartholomew (1926--1985), an art critic and photographer, Bartholomew learned his first photography lessons at home. In his early teens he photographed in the documentary tradition, producing images of family, friends, and cities.

Represented by Gamma Liaison for over 20 years, he worked as a photojournalist recording societies in conflict and transition. His works have been published in the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, Business Week, National Geographic and GEO, amongst other prestigious magazines and journals.

Bartholomew then began photographing people in transition in different parts of the world.

He has held a number of fellowships, including one from the Asian Cultural Council, New York (1991), to photograph Indian immigrants in the USA, and one from the Institute of Comparative Studies in Human Culture, Norway (1995), to photograph the Naga tribes in India. Between 2001 and 2003 he ran a photography workshop for emerging photographers in India with the support of the World Press Photo Foundation in Amsterdam. Among his photo essays are "The Chinese in Calcutta","The Indians in America," and "The Naga Tribes of Northeast India".

Source: IOPF website