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Bangladesh’s visible historical past
It all began fairly accidentally. In 1981, whereas visiting the famend Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, USA, the place the Festival of India was being held, I got here throughout some outstanding classic pictures of British India and the Princely States on show. As I stood transfixed in entrance of a giant, engaging {photograph} of an Indian potentate of yore, a gorgeously attired previous Maharajah who stared balefully on the digicam, a thought struck me. Would or not it’s attainable to find, retrieve, accumulate, determine, faithfully restore and analysis classic pictures in Bangladesh? I used to be, after all, conscious that, given the weather conditions in our deltaic nation, that are averse to any kind of preservation, not to mention the survival of classic pictures, it might be very troublesome to search out them in good situation.
The concept then lay dormant in my thoughts for over a decade. Once again house, from 1997 onwards, and in phases, I actively began engaged on self-initiated initiatives involving the rediscovery, restoration and analysis of classic pictures and writing their photographic historical past. I had laboriously managed to find most of those pictures in non-public collections. Most of the pictures I got here throughout have been invariably in various phases of injury and decay. Sadly sufficient, this was primarily attributable to a ignorance among the many homeowners and their failure to use even very primary preservation methods.
Sir Khawaja M. Nazimuddin (1894–1964), CIE, a outstanding politician from East Bengal, now Bangladesh. Photo: Edna Lorenz, Calcutta, 1933.
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Sir Khawaja M. Nazimuddin (1894–1964), CIE, a outstanding politician from East Bengal, now Bangladesh. Photo: Edna Lorenz, Calcutta, 1933.
Consequently, I got here to study that some worthwhile photographic collections had perished in non-public arms over the a long time, and even in establishments I discovered some collections saved in a state of utter neglect. Many a uncommon {photograph} may have been saved with even some rudimentary consideration and care.
The painstaking job of finding, restoring and researching classic pictures has turn out to be a consuming ardour of mine. The arduous work that went into producing the primary manuscript lastly paid off in 2003 by means of beneficiant company sponsorship, culminating within the publication of a limited-edition coffee-table e book, the first-ever complete catalogue/e book within the nation on classic pictures, entitled Rare Photographs of Eastern Bengal (1880–1940) (2003), that includes a uncommon and splendid array of 122 previous pictures thematically organized in related chapters, with photograph captions and explanatory textual content.
Sher-e-Bangla A. Okay. Fazlul Huq (1873–1962), a outstanding politician from East Bengal, now Bangladesh. Photo: Edna Lorenz, Calcutta, 1933.
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Sher-e-Bangla A. Okay. Fazlul Huq (1873–1962), a outstanding politician from East Bengal, now Bangladesh. Photo: Edna Lorenz, Calcutta, 1933.
Since the publication of my first e book by Standard Chartered Bank in Bangladesh, I’ve not regarded again. Although I’m not even an beginner photographer, I stay fascinated with pictures primarily as a type of wonderful artwork. My quest for classic pictures, specifically, is pushed by historic, sociological and aesthetic issues.
Rather belatedly, however at an opportune time, I intend to arrange a state-of-the-art classic photograph archive and web site, which I imagine will facilitate the work of lecturers and analysis college students whereas additionally serving the curious and even armchair aficionados, offering them with visible glimpses and textual details about our social and photographic historical past by means of the dissemination of specialized data. The intent is to introduce a brand new agenda into tutorial and mental discourse pertaining to historic and socio-cultural research.
A uncommon portrait of the eminent Maharishi Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905), father of Rabindranath Tagore, photographed in his previous age at his house in Jorasanko, Calcutta. Photo: Johnston & Hoffmann, Calcutta, circa 1901.
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A uncommon portrait of the eminent Maharishi Debendranath Tagore (1817–1905), father of Rabindranath Tagore, photographed in his previous age at his house in Jorasanko, Calcutta. Photo: Johnston & Hoffmann, Calcutta, circa 1901.
As the interpretation of photographs regularly strikes away from the accepted sphere of pictures as a typical social and pictorial doc and enters the precincts of a extra fluid and comparatively new methodology and discourse, there’s a have to train restraint. We ought to strive to make sure that an archetypal photographic work doesn’t turn out to be a stereotype when seen by means of the eyes of a social or cultural historian or a vital theorist. My concern is to warning viewers and readers, notably those that are uninitiated and thus doubtlessly gullible, in opposition to being unduly influenced by authors whose photographic works are inclined to assemble discursive meanings round photographs. I stay satisfied that, in most cases, it was by no means actually the intention of the photographer to make his work unnecessarily controversial.
For instance, my total assortment of a whole bunch of classic pictures, retrieved principally from non-public collections and encompassing a broad spectrum of visible photographs, consists largely of snapshots, basically acts of self-memorialisation by individuals who have been caught up within the pleasure surrounding the appearance of the photographic medium, particularly throughout the colonial period. Thus, there isn’t any have to learn an excessive amount of or too little into them. This is, after all, to not droop goal discourse, however to strike a stability in our judgement. In the top, these uncommon pictures must be celebrated and loved as photographic realities and artworks from the previous.
Gorgeously wearing princely apparel, Maharaj-Kumar Sir Prodyot Kumar Tagore (1873–1942) of the Pathuriaghata clan of the Tagore household, Calcutta. Photo: Johnston & Hoffmann, Calcutta, circa 1903.
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Gorgeously wearing princely apparel, Maharaj-Kumar Sir Prodyot Kumar Tagore (1873–1942) of the Pathuriaghata clan of the Tagore household, Calcutta. Photo: Johnston & Hoffmann, Calcutta, circa 1903.
Restoration and, thus, conservation of classic pictures shouldn’t be an institutional precedence in our nation. It is considerably comprehensible. Although photographic collections have existed for the reason that nineteenth century, the willingness to create museum or archival photographic collections on a par with drawing or portray collections is comparatively latest — perhaps solely a long time previous, relying upon the nation. Photography is a comparatively new medium. To an extent, it’s only pure that its appreciation as a type of artwork has lagged behind that of different disciplines, resembling portray or drawing, which have been researched, appreciated and displayed for hundreds of years. Therefore, in comparison with different types of image-making, pictures nonetheless represents a small portion of collections in archives and museums worldwide.
Vintage photographic restoration and conservation, in addition to schooling within the area, should strike a stability between the remedy of particular person works and extra holistic approaches to total collections. What have to be preserved for posterity are each particular person pictures of various worth and lasting high quality and enormous photographic collections that collectively want specialised care.
After the royal hunt, His Highness Nawab Sir Mahboob Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VI, Nizam of Hyderabad (seated third from left, holding his hat in his arms), poses along with his entourage alongside his prized trophies, two massive tigers. Seated beside the Nizam is the famend Urdu poet Daagh Dehlvi of Mughal Delhi and Hyderabad, a step-grandson of Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. Photo: Raja Lala Deen Dayal, circa 1902.
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After the royal hunt, His Highness Nawab Sir Mahboob Ali Khan, Asaf Jah VI, Nizam of Hyderabad (seated third from left, holding his hat in his arms), poses along with his entourage alongside his prized trophies, two massive tigers. Seated beside the Nizam is the famend Urdu poet Daagh Dehlvi of Mughal Delhi and Hyderabad, a step-grandson of Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. Photo: Raja Lala Deen Dayal, circa 1902.
I’ve made it my mission to examine, re-envision and reconstruct the previous from assorted clusters of principally broken classic pictures — repositories of misplaced recollections. It provides me intrinsic satisfaction to have the ability to restore these compelling testaments of a bygone period and write their photographic historical past. Perhaps the very best tribute to those immortal photographs is to allow them to inform their very own tales!
Waqar A Khan is the founding father of the Bangladesh Forum for Heritage Studies.
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