Raghu Rai, one of the most well-known and renowned photographers of India, died in a private hospital at the age of 83 in Delhi on Sunday. His son, photographer Nitin Rai, affirmed that he had spent the last two years fighting cancer and that the cancer had eventually spread to his brain and was accompanied with complications brought about by old age.
Raghu Rai was born in 1942 in Jhang, Punjab (now in Pakistan) and it was under the tutelage of his elder brother, S Paul, that he developed a passion to pursue photography. His first job was in the middle of 1960s with him joining The Statesman in New Delhi in 1965. His tenure also witnessed important events in the country and even photographed when The Beatles visited India in 1968 at the ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
Rai got to the world stage in 1977 when he was nominated to join the Magnum Photos by the renowned photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. He spent the years working with top publications including India today where he worked as a picture editor and senior photographer.
Rai contributed to the field with a collection of strong visual records of significant historical events but most importantly, the Bhopal gas disaster that led to his book Exposure: A Corporate Crime. He has written more than 18 books, during his career about the culture, people and landscape of India.
His work featured in some of the most popular magazines in the world such as Time, Life, The New York Times and The New Yorker. The death of a visionary artist whose prism created the storyline of modern Indian photographing has left India without a visionary figure.