the anarchy

We are very excited to announce this special bonus episode of A Life in Art, in which William Dalrymple is interviewed by the legendary photographer Steve McCurry. The pair discuss a wide range of subjects, from their first visits India, how they met, to their work in Afghanistan and the photography of Julia Margaret Cameron. Steve also selects his favourite images from William's exhibition, which is on display at the gallery until the 30th July 2021.

A recording of the zoom interview between Steve and William, can be seen on our Instagram account: @grosvenorgallery, as well as on our website: www.grosvenorgallery.com

Throughout his career, McCurry has produced some of the most recognisable and iconic photographs of recent times. His work spans conflicts, vanishing cultures, ancient traditions and contemporary culture alike - yet always retains the human element that made his celebrated image of the Afghan Girl such a powerful image.

In 2004, McCurry founded ImagineAsia, a non-profit organisation to help provide educational resources and opportunities to children and young adults in Afghanistan.

The Traveller’s Eye is a visual diary of black and white photographs, shot over the last couple of years by William Dalrymple during his travels and research for his two books ‘The Anarchy’ and his upcoming book ‘The Golden Road’. William has followed the footsteps of the central characters in his books which has led him to travel extensively throughout the Indian subcontinent and modern-day Pakistan, Afghanistan and down to Sri Lanka, locations of many of the images in the exhibition.

"I've been visiting all the places where this history took place – the battlefields and ruins, the mosques, Sufi shrines and temples, the paradise gardens and pleasure grounds, the barrack blocks and townhouses, the crumbling Mughal havelis and the palaces and forts."

The Traveller's Eye: Photographs by William Dalrymple, runs at the gallery from the 1st - 30th July 2021. To purchase works from the show please visit our website, or look at our store on Instagram: @grosvenorgallery @alifeinart

We hope you enjoy this episode. Please like, review and share wherever you listen to your podcasts.

In this episode we talk to William Dalrymple about his love of photography and his upcoming exhibition at Grosvenor Gallery, The Traveller’s Eye, taking place from the 1st to the 30th July 2021. We discuss his artistic heroes, his technique as well as experiences from his recent research trips.

William Dalrymple is one of Britain’s great historians and the bestselling author of the Wolfson Prize-winning White Mughals, the Duff Cooper prize winning The Last Mughal, and the Hemingway and Kapucinski Prizewinning Return of a King. His most recent book, The Anarchy, was long listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize 2019, and short listed for the Duke of Wellington medal for Military History, the Tata Book of the Year (Non-fiction) and the Historical Writers Association Book Award 2020. It was a Finalist for the Cundill Prize for History and won the 2020 Arthur Ross Bronze Medal from the US Council on Foreign Relations. 

William’s previous exhibitions include; The Writer's Eye, held at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi, Sunaparanta: Goa Centre for the Arts and Grosvenor Gallery, London in 2016, and The Historian’s Eye, at Vadehra Art Gallery in 2019.

An exhibition of William’s photographs titled The Traveller’s Eye will be displayed at Grosvenor Gallery in London from the 1st – 30 July 2021.

The Traveller’s Eye is a visual diary of black and white photographs, shot over the last couple of years by William during his travels and research trips for his 2019 book The Anarchy and his forthcoming book The Golden Road. William has followed the footsteps of the central characters in his books which has led him to travel extensively throughout the Indian subcontinent, modern-day Pakistan, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.

The images will be published on our website on Friday 2nd July. Images and photographs of some of the places & locations mentioned in this episode will also be available to see on our podcast and gallery Instagram pages; @alifeinart and @grosvenorgallery. You can also follow William on Instragram: @williamdalrymple. 

 If you’d like to enquire about any of the works in the show our email address is art@grosvenorgallery.com.

Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed this episode. Please do subscribe and rate the podcast wherever you listen. We’ll be back with another episode very soon. 

The fact that some people think that Stephen of Blois -- or maybe Ranulf Meschin -- caused the sinking of la Blanche-Nef allows us to consider it a True Crime.  It wasn't.  But it was the worst teenage drunken party in history, and that's good enough for us.