Say cheese to king: Bhutan photo exhibit gets royal touch

“Both countries share a special friendship,” says Pramod Kumar KG,who conceived the show with Namita Gokhale. “The exhibition will include several archival photographs that have never been exhibited before. This would be the first time images clicked by the king will be exhibited.”

Titled ‘Bhutan: An Eye to History’,the show will be inaugurated by the king at the NGMA on Wednesday.

On display will be 88 images sourced from private collections in India and Bhutan,as also images taken by the king. One of the earliest photographs,of the Ashley Eden Mission in Bhutan in 1863,comes from the Alkazi Collection,and a photograph of Bhutan’s king and queen at the Taj Mahal in 1954 comes from the collection of the Queen Grandmother of Bhutan Ashi Kesang Choeden Wangchuck.

Kuensel Corporation has contributed with a photograph of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Thimphu in May 2008.

The images will be put in categories at the exhibit: so photographs of the first king of Bhutan,Ugyen Wangchuck,who visited Calcutta in 1905 and attended the Delhi Durbar in 1911,will feature in the first section: ‘History of Photography in Bhutan’. State visits of political leaders from India,and reciprocal journeys from Bhutan,will feature in the section ‘Indo-Bhutanese ties since 1949’.

Works of the king of Bhutan will comprise another section. Among the 36 images clicked by king in this category are portraits of villagers from Lhuentse in east Bhutan and the ruins of Zhongar Dzong.

The aim of the exhibition,Kumar says,is to “give an overview”.