In 1956, when the world had begun to piece itself back together after World War II, fashion photographer Norman Parkinson made a trip to India on an assignment for British Vogue. The images that emerged, contrasted the aesthetics of Western fashion against a quixotic Indian backdrop — just one more milestone — in a career during which Parkinson redefined just what constituted fashion photography. At the close of a pan-India exhibition of Mr Parkinson’s India series (titled Pink Is the Navy Blue Of India), Tasveer Arts’ curator Nathaniel Gaskell puts the works in perspective.
The selection of Norman Parkinson’s work has toured several Indian cities, of which Mumbai is the last leg. Could you tell us about what the response to the exhibition has been like? Is there excitement about a fuller retrospective of Parkinson’s works?
This response to the exhibitions has far exceeded our expectations. It seems it has really caught the imagination of our audience, and had an appeal to both people interested in the history of photography, as well as people who simply just love the photographs, and are enjoying them. As a selling exhibition also it’s gone well, with collectors keen to get their hands on the limited edition prints.
Have you found that Parkinson’s way of looking at India has perhaps led us to see India in a new way too?
I think it might be ambitious to say that he changed the way we look at India, but I certainly think he created a look through this shoot that hadn’t been seen before. Eastern and Western aesthetics are obviously very different (be it fashion, style, architecture, art etc); the more pared down designs of the clothes in the shoot, and the comparatively plain fabrics, the more it seems at odds with a country so aesthetically frenetic, full of colour, and (at least with the locations Parkinson used), incredibly opulent. However, in these photographs, this marriage of styles really works.
Parkinson was widely complimented on the way he managed to capture all the colours of the country, as also a certain amount of romance. What else do you think he managed to capture about us?
He was more interested in using India as a stunning visual backdrop, that really enhanced the subjects, rather than in order to make some kind of comment about the country, as so many foreign documentary photographers were at this time. Parkinson was above all, a great image-maker, with a fantastic eye, and he used the locations in a favourable way, to make the stunning images you see.
Coming from an entirely non-academic standpoint, Parkinson’s indirect documentation of places like the Shore Temple at Mahabalipuram, the Red Fort and the Quwwat-Ul-Islam Mosque, for example, show us these places in an entirely new and fun way. For a photographer, perhaps, the whole world is a set, and Parkinson therefore looked at buildings completely differently to how an art historian or a religious devotee would — he’s interested in how he can frame them to show off the models and instill his photographs with a sense of exploration, spontaneity — and to a certain extent what he, and his audience, would have considered as exotic.
Why is Mr Parkinson’s work— apart from the fact that this series is set in India — important for us to see?
Parkinson’s shoot in India was one of hundreds from what was one of the longest, and successful, careers in fashion photography. His work really defined the look and feel of much of the 20th century regarding fashion and style in the British psyche. Fine and important photographs such as these are therefore an important part of visual history. In many ways, photography is still marginalised as an artistic medium in India, with few chances to see exhibitions of really quality stuff. One of the things we’re trying to do at Tasveer, is to work with galleries and estates abroad to bring this kind of work into the country, to give people the opportunity to see fine photographs such as these in the flesh — as beautiful objects, rather than just in a magazine or on a computer screen.
What do you think his work says about the artist (although he didn’t like to be referred to as one) himself?
The huge variety of his work, from the gritty streets of East London, to the bountiful colour we see in some of his Indian work, are cut through with a liveliness, spontaneity and humour, which all speak volumes about the fun and colourful character of the photographer himself.
Mr Parkinson was responsible for changing how we looked at fashion photography. But how has he managed to stay relevant even today, when what is considered de rigueur in fashion photography has changed once again?
The familiar adage surrounding Parkinson’s legacy is his idea of taking the models out of the confines of the studio and en plein air, thus reinvigorating fashion photography with a new spontaneity and paving the way for much that would follow. However, as with all art forms, since then, fashion photography has continued to reinvent itself, and to change with the time, absorbing new influences and demands. There are elements in Parkinson’s work which look deceptively contemporary, and yet there are other elements that appear somewhat dated, and which belong to another era altogether. What’s so interesting about studying the history of artistic styles and fashions is piecing together the various references in a contemporary image, and working out not only how the photographer reached his aesthetic decisions, but also how these are in turn the product of photographers working before him.