Active Stocks
Thu Mar 28 2024 15:59:33
  1. Tata Steel share price
  2. 155.90 2.00%
  1. ICICI Bank share price
  2. 1,095.75 1.08%
  1. HDFC Bank share price
  2. 1,448.20 0.52%
  1. ITC share price
  2. 428.55 0.13%
  1. Power Grid Corporation Of India share price
  2. 277.05 2.21%
Business News/ Mint-lounge / Features/  The mystery treasure of William Gedney
BackBack

The mystery treasure of William Gedney

In Chitrabani, an institute in Kolkata, sit 974 books on photography donated by an enigmatic man who had just one photo exhibition during his lifetime

William Gedney Collection at the Chitrabani library, Kolkata.. Photo: Indranil Bhoumik/MintPremium
William Gedney Collection at the Chitrabani library, Kolkata.. Photo: Indranil Bhoumik/Mint

Twenty-seven years ago, on a day in 1989, Joy Sebastian found himself carrying out an odd assignment. It was for his employer, Chitrabani, a mass-media institute in central Kolkata founded in 1970 by Jesuit priest Gaston Roberge, with film-maker Satyajit Ray as a governing body member and adviser. Sebastian’s job was to transport a huge consignment that had been shipped from the US and was lying at the American consulate office in Kolkata. The shipment turned out to be a “treasure trove" of 974 books exclusively on photography; the collection was valued at 1.4 lakh in 1990. Sebastian, then personal assistant to the director of Chitrabani, remembers having paid 250 to hire a Matador tempo, the only expense incurred by Chitrabani to take possession of the books.

The books—many of them rare first editions and out-of-print titles—occupy three large glass-fronted cabinets at the Chitrabani library. Named after William Gedney, the American photographer who donated the books, the collection has such volume and vintage that some, like the retired Sebastian, contend that no such catalogue of analogue photography books exists in any Indian library.

For a mere 10 as fee for a day’s visit to the library, one can remain immersed in the works of photography luminaries such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Annie Leibovitz, Alfred Stieglitz, Ansel Adams, Robert Capa, Margaret Bourke-White, Bruce Davidson, Walker Evans, Bill Brandt, Man Ray, David Hockney, Edward Weston, and Indian photographers such as Raghubir Singh and Ram Rahman. The William Gedney Collection features mostly books going back to the black and white era of manual photography, so time turns with every page.

At the institute, though, not much information can be gleaned on the antecedents of Gedney. A framed photo of him, which could earlier be seen on the wall of the library, has gone missing. There is no documented history on the donor, says librarian G. Rozario; the institute’s director, Father P.J. Joseph, too pleads ignorance. A measure of Gedney’s stature in the world of photography can be gauged from the initiative taken by well-known photographer Lee Friedlander to facilitate the donation to Chitrabani after Gedney’s death on 23 June 1989, says Sebastian. Roberge, who is currently attached to Kolkata’s St Xavier’s College, quit his administrative role in Chitrabani in 1995 to go to Rome. Now in his 80s, he has no recollection of the collection of books or the name behind the remarkable donation of 974 titles. Who, then, was William Gedney?

A common sentiment streaming through many of the biographical entries available online is that he was a photographer whose work and worth found critical appreciation posthumously. An obituary in The New York Times carried the information on Gedney’s death from AIDS at the age of 56 at his Staten Island home in New York. Gedney had spent two decades as a teacher of photography and a lifetime documenting rural Kentucky, the hippie culture of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district, and India, among other things. Though he was a recipient of the prestigious Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships, the only time the reticent photographer had a solo exhibition of his works was in 1968, at New York’s exalted Museum of Modern Art. The museum currently houses a collection of his photographs, as does the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, said to be the world’s oldest museum for photography.

It is reported that only one photograph by Gedney was published in an American magazine during his lifetime and, despite the backing of renowned photographers such as Walker Evans, Diane Arbus, John Szarkowski and Friedlander, he refused to publish a book. It seems gratifying that Gedney would choose to offer Chitrabani, a small media institute in faraway Kolkata, the largesse of his books.

In the extensive 5,000-item collection of Gedney’s work from the 1950s till his death in 1989—hosted online under the digital collections of Duke University Libraries—are 360 photographs of Kolkata (listed under “Calcutta, India"). You can see in the photos the empathy with which Gedney’s camera held all his subjects, be it through his exposition of gay rallies and bonding in the US, street life from New York, hippie lifestyles in San Francisco or the exquisite commentary on a laid-off mine worker from the Cornett family in Kentucky. Gedney was a friend of Indian photographer Raghubir Singh; Varanasi and Kolkata were the two places in India where he shot extensively, exposing, in the traditional documentary format, the peaceful coexistence on the streets.

Though a matter of conjecture, it is quite likely that his multiple visits to Kolkata also introduced Gedney to the founding principles behind Chitrabani—a Church-funded media institute that charged students a pittance in its effort to lend to photography and film-making a social concern, says Roberge. Yet, in 1995, the year Roberge left the institute, and six years after it got the Gedney Collection of photography books, Chitrabani shut down its photography department—administrative shortcomings and the onset of digital photography are often cited as reasons. Legions of students in Kolkata had benefited from its still photography workshops and well-stocked processing laboratory, many going on to become acclaimed professionals in the field. “By then, even as Chitrabani knew that the future lay in digital photography, we couldn’t upgrade because of the enormous investments involved. The paper, films and chemicals used for analogue photography too became scarce," says Sebastian.

The William Gedney Collection opens up a wondrous world of images, but I did not see a single user in the library over the three days that I visited the institute.

Most of the books are personally signed by Gedney. It is easy to be enchanted by the touching solitude of Bruce Davidson’s Widow Of Montmartre and the tension and edginess of his Brooklyn Gang series. Erich Salomon: Portrait Of An Age is a compendium of the work of a photographer who shot clandestinely in forbidden zones, such as a murder trial in session in a US courtroom or confabulations at a disarmament conference in the Hague. He, in fact, inspired the phrase “candid camera".

Two more interesting books keep me occupied at the large wooden table—Prison Exposures: First Photographs Inside Prison By A Convict by photographer Robert Neese (convict # 24933 at the Iowa state prison) gives an insider’s view of interned life; The Face Of Madness: Hugh W. Diamond And The Origin Of Psychiatric Photography is an evocative treatise on how portraiture traces the pathos of the insane, depressed, deranged and alcoholic. Titles such as The Private World Of Pablo Picasso: The Intimate Photographic Profile Of The World’s Greatest Artist by David Douglas Duncan and Man Ray: Photographs fall in the overlapping zone of painting, fine arts and photography.

Not a single title donated by Gedney covers digital photography but the aesthetics of image-making remain unchanged, notwithstanding the overriding technological leap of the medium. The William Gedney Collection serves as a comprehensive guide to a fading era of photography.

Unlock a world of Benefits! From insightful newsletters to real-time stock tracking, breaking news and a personalized newsfeed – it's all here, just a click away! Login Now!

Catch all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download The Mint News App to get Daily Market Updates.
More Less
Published: 28 Jan 2016, 05:45 PM IST
Next Story footLogo
Recommended For You
Switch to the Mint app for fast and personalized news - Get App