The 46thBiennial Exhibition Media/Metaphor, Cor-
coran Museum of Art, Washington, DC
2001 A Way With Words: Selections from the Whitney Mu-
seum of American Art, Whitney Museum of American
Art at Philip Morris, New York, New York
I’m Thinking of a Place, UCLA Armand Hammer
Museum, Los Angeles, CA
Selected Works
The Waterbearer, 1986
You’re Fine, 1988
Guarded Conditions, 1989
Flipside, 1991
She, 1992
Wigs, 1994
Still, 1997
Interior/Exterior, Full/Empty, 1997
Further Reading
Enwezor, Okwui, ‘‘Social Grace: The Work of Lorna Simp-
son,’’Third Text, Vol. 35, Summer 1996, 43–58.
Evidence: Photography and Site. Columbus, Ohio: Wexner
Center for the Arts, The Ohio State University, 1997.
Hirsch, Robert.Seizing the Light: A History of Photogra-
phy. Boston: Mc Graw Hill, 2000.
Hooks, Bell,Art on My Mind: Visual Politics. New York:
W.W. Norton, 1995.
Places with a Past: New Site-Specific Art at Charleston’s
Spoleto Festival. New York: Rizzoli, 1991.
Trinh T. Minh-Ha,When the Moon Waxes Red: Represen-
tation, Gender and Cultural Politics. New York and Lon-
don: Routledge, 1991.
Willis-Thomas, Deborah.Lorna Simpson. San Francisco:
The Friends of Photography, 1992.
Willis-Thomas, Deborah.Reflections in Black: A History of
Black Photographers, 1840–1999. New York: W.W. Nor-
ton & Company, Inc., 2000.
Wilkes, Andrew. ‘‘Lorna Simpson.’’Aperture, no. 133, Fall
1993, 14–23.
A World of Art: Works in Progress, Lorna Simpson[video-
recording], South Burlington, Vermont: Annenberg/
CPB Project, 1997.
Wright, Beryl J. and Saidiya V. Hartman.Lorna Simpson:
For the Sake of the Viewer. New York: Universe Pub-
lishing, and Chicago: Museum of Contemporary Art,
1992.RAGHUBIR SINGH
Indian
Raghubir Singh was born in an affluent Rajput
family in Jaipur, Rajasthan, in October 1942.
Singh’s grandfather was the commander of the Jai-
pur State Forces, and the family was close to the
Maharaja of Jaipur. Singh’s mother came from a
village near Chittor. Singh ascribed his passion to
his homeland: ‘‘My voice is essentially that of some-
one who spent his formative years in Rajasthan. My
artistic sense was shaped early by the culture of the
Rajputs of Rajasthan.’’
Singh’s family lost its landholdings when the gov-
ernment of India introduced land reforms in 1950.
He studied at the Hindu College, but he walked out
during his graduation exam and applied for a job
with tea companies, but failed to secure a job. It
was around this time, still a teenager, that Singh
took up active photography as a career and went on
to become one of India’s finest contemporary pho-
tographers. He lived in three continents outside
India—in Hong Kong, Paris, London, and New
York—yet he returned periodically to take photo-
graphs of his home country. Singh photographed
on assignment for numerous illustrated magazines,
includingThe New Yorker,National Geographic,and
Time. But ultimately he dedicated his photographic
career to capturing all aspects of Indian subjects.
Singh was inspired from an early age by the cel-
ebrated French photographer Henri Cartier-Bres-
son’s photographs of India. In 1966, Singh met
Cartier-Bresson during the latter’s visit to Jaipur.
He keenly observed Cartier-Bresson’s style, but he
diverged on fundamental aspects of photography. In
keeping with the Western tradition of photography,
Cartier-Bresson practiced in the black-and-white
medium. To Singh, colors represented an intrinsic
culture of the hard, everyday life that defined true
India. He explained:
Unlike people in the West, Indians have always intui-
tively seen and controlled color. Our theories, from
antiquity, became a flowing and rhythmic entity on
India’s river of life—its river of color...the eyes of India
only see in color.SINGH, RAGHUBIR