She was the first of her kind. Homai Vyarawalla, India’s first female photojournalist, photographed Indian leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru, as well as the famous visitors who stood on India’s stage in the years after independence—Jackie Kennedy, Helen Keller, Martin Luther King Jr., and others. She started taking pictures in the 1930s and continued through 1970, producing not just journalism, but also art photography and documentary work that gave a glimpse into British colonial society. Throughout her life, Vyarawalla had a reputation for being creative, playful, and resourceful, while of course also having to reckon with being a woman in a field dominated by men. She died this past January at the age of 98.
In partnership with India’s Alkazi Foundation for the Arts, New York’s Rubin Museum of Art has a retrospective of Vyarawalla’s work up until early next year. Here is a look at some of her images.
