In one frame, a crowd is gathered along the narrow lanes of Shahchara Mohalla in Lucknow as a royal palanquin passes by. On the sidelines, actor Farooq Sheikh, playing Aqil in ‘Shatranj Ke Khiladi‘ (1977), stands one hand firmly on his waist. And, leaning against a worn wall, one foot resting on a pipeline, director Satyajit Ray’s camera captures the scene unfolding around him. In another frame from the same shooting, Ray stands with members of his unit, carefully lining up a shot featuring Amjad Khan as Wajid Ali Shah in regal costume for the iconic historical satire on the British annexation of Awadh in 1856.
In a third image, Ray is seen lining up a shot for The Stranger (Agantuk, 1991) with actor Utpal Dutt (Manomohan) and children on the Maidan in Kolkata. Taken on November 22, 1990, this was the first scene of the film to be shot, coincidentally on the day when his grandson Souradip was born. Another striking image shows the filmmaker standing amid mustard fields, consulting his “kherora khata” — the traditional Bengali red cloth-bound handmade ledger book that rarely left his side during shoots.
Audiences have long known Ray through his path-breaking cinema. Now, they have a chance to see the lens turned on the master filmmaker himself — and, that too, in colour. An exhibition at DAG titled “Faces and Facets: Satyajit Ray in Colour” brings together rare colour photographs of the legendary filmmaker taken by photographer Nemai Ghosh, his close friend and collaborator from 1968 until the director’s death in 1992. Opening on May 8 at at the art gallery on Janpath Road, the exhibition will remain on view until July 4.
The exhibition presents a deeply personal and expansive portrait of Ray, including behind-the-scenes images from films such as Agantuk, Ghare-Baire (1984) and Joi Baba Felunath (1979); photographs of him sketching costumes, composing music at home, or working quietly in his cavernous study; intimate family portraits; and contemplative moments on film sets where the filmmaker often withdrew into silence between takes. Ray once himself, remarking on the aloofness, said, “When I’m working I’m a complete democrat. It’s when I’m sitting at home alone and doing nothing that it seems aristocratic.”
The takes forward an earlier DAG exhibition, “Nemai Ghosh: Satyajit Ray and Beyond,” which foregrounded Ghosh’s iconic black-and-white photographs and situated Ray within a larger cinematic fraternity that included filmmakers such as Gautam Ghosh, Aparna Sen and Shyam Benegal.
“If black-and-white distilled the filmmaker into tonal contrasts and sculptural gravitas, colour restores atmosphere and immediacy bringing forth the warmth of interiors, the modulations of light across surfaces, and the subtle textures of the environments within which Ray conceived his films. exhibition attempts to bring to light Ray’s lesser known but equally extensive documentation of his cinema,” DAG said in a statement.
Spread across nearly 25 years, the 126 photographs chronicle actors, sets, locations and moments of filmmaking, while also documenting Ray in quieter, deeply human moments away from the camera. “Ray’s dedication to his craft led Ghosh to follow him like a shadow and conditioned him to the exacting demands of the maestro. Over the course of a twenty-five-year association that began on the sets of Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1969), Ghosh remained steadfast in upholding the values that defined Ray’s artistic vision. In Ray, Ghosh found not just a filmmaker but a mentor and friend; no other director’s set quite measured up,” said Ashish Anand, CEO and MD, DAG.
Anand added, “Nemai Ghosh’s lens extended beyond Satyajit Ray’s film sets into his intimate personal world. A frequent visitor to Ray’s home, Ghosh often captured Ray at the piano, at his drawing board, or in quiet conversation with friends and family. He photographed Ray in moments of profound introspection—whether at home, in his studio, or on location—likening him to a meditative yogi. From solitary walks through his house and lighter moments during shoots, or silent contemplation in open fields, Ghosh preserved a deeply human and nuanced portrait of the filmmaker. These candid glimpses became an integral part of Ghosh’s visual biography of a man he saw as both extraordinary and profoundly grounded.”
Accompanying the exhibition is a book, “Faces and Facets: Satyajit Ray in Colour”, which combines the photographs with quotations drawn from interviews conducted by biographer Andrew Robinson between 1982 and 1988 with Ray, his collaborators, actors and friends. Divided into two sections — “The Man” and “The Films”— the volume offers an intimate visual and textual journey into Ray’s creative universe; dialogue with him, his coworkers, friends and his actors.
In the preface, the late Ghosh reflects on decades spent documenting the filmmaker he affectionately called Manikda: “Manikda was always aware of my presence, although he never commented on it. ‘Nemai is like a bug on my windowsill.’ Keeping Manikda’s memory alive is a duty I gladly took upon myself. So when a few years ago i remembered that I had unpublished colour photographs of him, it was like chancing upon a forgotten treasure trove.”
