CONDITION USED GOOD, THE CRITIC’S EYE , RICHARD BARTHOLOMEW , HARDCOVER ,2009

This is an excellent book of photographs of Delhi in India during the 1950’s to 1970’s taken by Richard Bartholomew. An outstanding introduction by Aveek Sen, a senior editor at The Telegraph, Kolkata who is the recipient of 2009 Inifinity Award for writing on Photography, awarded by the International Centre of Photography, New York. About the Author: A writer, art critic, curator, painter and poet, is how Richard Bartholomew (1926 – 1985) is remembered. Bartholomew’s love for literature and art remained lifelong companions and he became one of the finest voices in the art criticism in India. He was one of the first art critics to start a serious dialogue with the painters of his time. He created a community with them and engendered a sense of direction at a time when the public was not fully receptive to the bold artistic exploration of India’s Progressive Art Movement. Ever watchful and yet unobtrusive, like the man he intrinsically was, Bartholomew perhaps understood the evidentiary and historical role of the photograph. He looked for the peculiar, the mundane and configured it with meaning that only a highly attuned mind would.