Now Reading: Raghu Rai’s daughter Avani completes Pirelli Calendar after his death
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Raghu Rai’s daughter Avani completes Pirelli Calendar after his death
Raghu Rai’s daughter Avani completes Pirelli Calendar after his death
Avani Rai has completed her father Raghu Rai's segment of the 2027 Pirelli Calendar following his death, describing the project as an emotional gift rather than a burden. In an interview with…
Avani Rai has completed her father Raghu Rai's segment of the 2027 Pirelli Calendar following his death, describing the project as an emotional gift rather than a burden. In an interview with Bombay Times, she said she never aimed to imitate his style because that would have required being the person he was. Instead, she carries forward his values: looking with empathy and staying open to life.
The calendar places India at its centre, and Avani said the team agreed not to explain the country or reduce it to stereotypes. She returned to Old Delhi streets, where her father photographed for six decades. She emphasised that India contains many truths and contradictions, not a single packaged narrative.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The Pirelli Calendar is among the rarest assignments in photography, only one edition is produced per year, and the 2027 edition will be the first to feature an Indian photographer since 1987, when the calendar last had a single Indian lens. Avani Rai is not merely completing her father's work but stepping into a global platform that typically commissions a single artist per edition, making the dual role of heir and photographer unprecedented for the calendar. The calendar itself is not sold commercially and is gifted to a select list of VIPs, so its cultural influence outweighs any financial metric. For Indian photography, the significance lies in representation: the world's most elusive photographic commission is now anchored in Delhi, shot by an Indian woman who is actively refusing both the exotic and the luxury tropes that foreign photographers have often imposed.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com
This brief was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
