The Foundation

The Raghu Rai Foundation for Arts and Photography

• Established by Raghu Rai, The Raghu Rai Foundation for Arts and Photography was established in 2010. It now houses the archive of more than 50,000 selected images by Raghu Rai. This work encapsulates over 50 years of India’s visual history. The collection comprises a myriad of significant socio political events that took place in the country over the last five decades. The topics are rich and varied. From within the cultural and creative fields it includes portraiture of important great masters of Indian classical music, classical dancers, well known artists / painters, writers, important film directors like Satyajit Ray and many others. It further includes an enormous collection of rare moments captured from the daily lives of ordinary people from rural India to metropolitan cities and hence an anthropological archive of people of India, detailed photo-documentation of rites and rituals, fairs and festivals in different regions of India.

Why This Foundation?

• To preserve the legacy of Raghu Rai’s enormous work in documenting modern India.
• To retain an exceptional body of work in New Delhi.
• To show – via exhibitions – the “highlights” of the collection and the work of other photographers, painters, sculptors, and illustrators.
• To enable researchers to carry out their studies on the visual history encapsulated in the work of Raghu Rai.
• To provide support to new photographic projects by organizing grants, scholarships and awards with an international jury.
• To publish books and journals on photography and other visual arts.
• To organize training workshops on creative photography.
• To open up a debate on photography by organizing Conversations and Interviews.