Solo photography exhibition by Marc Riboud ongoing at Alliance Francaise de Dhaka

Entertainment Desk :
An eighteen-day solo photography exhibition titled ‘Bangladesh 1971: Mourning and Morning’ by Marc Riboud is going on at the La Galerie of the Alliance Française de Dhaka (AFD) in the capital’s Dhanmondi area, said a press release.
The inaugural ceremony of the exhibition was held on October 14 on the gallery premises. Education Minister Dr Dipu Moni attended the inaugural ceremony as the chief guest, while Dr Bernd Spanier, Chargé d’Affaires, Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Bangladesh and Guillaume Audren de Kerdrel, Chargé d’Affaires, Embassy of France in Bangladesh were also present as the special guests on the occasion.
Supported by L’association Les amis de Marc Riboud, and Musée Guimet; it is a unique exhibition of some powerful photographs taken during the Liberation War of Bangladesh.
One of the first generation of Magnum photographers, French veteran photographer Marc Riboud was born in Saint-Genis-Laval, near Lyon, in 1923. He shot his first photographs at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1937, using a tiny Vest Pocket Kodak given to him by his father for his 14th birthday. In 1944, he joined the Vercors resistance. From 1945 to 1948, he studied engineering at Lyon’s Ecole Centrale and began working.
Three years later, he chose to pursue a career as a photographer.
His photo of a painter atop the Eiffel Tower was published in Life magazine in 1953. This was his first published work. Afterwards, he joined the Magnum Photos agency after being invited by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa.
He travelled by road from the Middle East and Afghanistan to India in 1955, where he remained for a year. In 1957, he travelled from Calcutta to Beijing for the first of many extended stays.
Bangladesh’s independence struggle piqued his attention, and he arrived in Kolkata in late November 1971. He journeyed inside the refugee camps and liberated zones. His expedition began at Sherpur and after crossing the mighty Brahmaputra river, he witnessed the decisive battle of Jamalpur, which he extensively documented.
The majority of these are still unpublished to this day. When the all-out Indo-Pakistan war broke out on December 3, he entered Bangladesh with an advancing Indian army backed up by Bangladeshi freedom fighters.
He was one of the first photographers to enter Dhaka and capture the city’s liberation with his camera.
Marc Riboud donated 192 original prints produced between 1953 and 1977 to the National Museum of Modern Art (Centre Georges Pompidou) in Paris in 2011. His art has received many prestigious honours and has been shown in museums and galleries in Paris, New York, Shanghai, and Tokyo, among other places.
Marc Riboud passed away in Paris in 2016 at the age of 93. The majority of his archives were given to the National Museum of Asian Arts – Guimet in Paris.
The exhibition will be open to all from Monday to Saturday from 3:00pm to 9:00pm till October 21 while the gallery remains closed on Sunday.