A trailblazer of street photography in India, Raghubir Singh, born in 1942, worked and published prolifically from the late 1960s until his passing in 1999, aged 56. Born into an aristocratic family in Rajasthan, over the course of his life he resided in Hong Kong, Paris, London, and New York, but his eye was inevitably…
Arthur George ‘Art’ Smith, better known by Art Smith, was a leading modernist jeweller of the mid-20th century, and one of the few Afro-Caribbean creatives working in the field to reach international acclaim. Inspired by biomorphism and primitivism, Smith’s jewellery is dynamic and diverse, varying dramatically in size and form. His designs were influenced by…
Renowned for his outstanding collection of Modernist furniture, the Maharaja of Indore is a legendary figure in the world of design. Born in 1908, Yashwant Rao Holkar II spent his youth living in luxury, enjoying the privileges afforded to India’s aristocracy. During the 1920s, Holkar II relocated to England to study at Oxford where a private tutor, Dr. Marcel…
One of the most celebrated and influential designers of the 20th century, Pierre Cardin, born in 1922 in Treviso, Italy, commenced his career at the age of fourteen undertaking an apprenticeship at a clothier. The Italian French designer, who passed away last week aged 98, left home in 1939 to work for a tailor in…
In the mid-sixties, brimming with new ideas and the need for a career change, Michael Chow, widely known as M, established his vision of bridging the East with the West through the cuisine of China in a participatory theatre of art, architecture, design and food. Born in Shanghai as Zhou Yinghua, Chow’s father was Zhou…
The women of Gee’s Bend, a small, remote, Black community in Alabama, have created hundreds of quilt masterpieces dating from the early twentieth century to the present. Resembling an inland island, Gee’s Bend is surrounded on three sides by the Alabama River. The some seven hundred or so inhabitants of this small, rural community are…
Yugantar, India’s first feminist film collective, was founded in Bangalore by friends and filmmakers Abha Bhaiya, Navroze Contractor, Deepa Dhanraj, and Meera Rao. Operating between 1980 and 1983, during a time of radical political transformation, Yugantar created four pioneering films together with existing or ensuing women’s groups, including domestic workers in Pune (Molkarin, 1981), female…
Born in Novara, Italy in 1932, celebrated Italian postmodernist artist, writer, and product and furniture designer Enzo Mari passed away yesterday, 19 October 2020. A fervent believer in the notion that good design should be available to all, and not just a privileged few, Mari’s dynamic practice incorporated explorations of the Arts and Crafts movement,…