Jyoti Bhatt Photography

The collection refers to the photographic work of Vadodara-based artist and photographer Jyoti Bhatt. It consists of over 75,000 artworks such as prints, negatives, slides and field journals, in which the photographer has made elaborate notes and illustrations from his travels across the country.

Beginning from around the mid 1960s, the collection spans almost five decades, showcasing Bhatt’s diverse photographic oeuvre.  A large part of the collection represents his more popularly known documentation of living traditions and rural cultures from regions like Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and so on. Along with this, it also offers a deep insight into his time at his alma mater, Maharaja Sayaji Rao University, Vadodara. In the process of documenting his academic circle and events such as the Fine Arts Fair, he has, possibly inadvertently, created a visual archive of Indian modernism propelled by the ‘Baroda School’.  As we navigate this massive and varied collection, it reveals Bhatt’s eye shifting between portraiture, documentary and experimental influences like abstract expressionism and surrealism, often simultaneously, in the same body of work.

Apart from photography, Jyoti Bhatt’s collection also highlights him as a conscientious archivist, where each film roll is coded by region, date and theme. The same follows for prints and contact sheets, the backs of which are frequently populated with frame-by-frame details. All these pieces of visual and textual information come together to draw a map of his photographic journey, helping the viewer gain a more holistic understanding of his practice.