Sunil Gupta Indian, b. 1953

Born in 1953 in New Delhi, Sunil Gupta has a master’s of arts from the Royal College of Art, London, and a PhD from University of Westminster, London, and has been involved with independent photography as a critical practice for many years focusing on race, migration and queer issues.

Gupta has several solo shows to his credit, including the Ryerson Image Centre, Toronto (2021); the Photographer’s Gallery, London (2020); Brixton Tate Library, London (2020, 2019); Hales Gallery, New York (2019); Stephen Bulger Gallery, Toronto (2018); the Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston (2018); Pelz Gallery, University of London (2017); Cardiff Photo Festival (2017); SepiaEYE, New York (2017, 2014); Whitney Humanities Centre, Yale University (2015); Grosvenor Vadehra, London (2010); and Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi (2009), to name a few. His group participations include the Barbican Art Gallery, London (2020); Vancouver Art Gallery (2019); Soho Art Gallery, New York (2019); Leslie Lohman Museum, New York (2019); the Kochi–Muziris Biennale (2018); the Philadelphia Museum of Art (2015), among many others.

In the 1980s, Gupta constructed documentary images of gay men in architectural spaces in Delhi, his Exiles series. The images and texts describe the conditions for gay men in India at the times. Gupta’s recent series Mr. Malhotra’s Party updates this theme during a time in which queer identities are more open and also reside in virtual space on the internet and in private parties. His early documentary series Christopher Street was shot in the mid 1970s as Gupta studied under Lisette Model at the New School for Social Research and became interested in the idea of gay public space. 

Gupta’s published work includes the monographs: Queer: Sunil Gupta (Prestel/Vadehra Art Gallery, 2011); Wish You Were Here: Memories of a Gay Life (Yoda Press, New Delhi, 2008); and Pictures From Here (Chris Boot Ltd., New York, 2003). His latest publications are Lovers: Ten Years On, Stanley Barker, 2020; and Sunil Gupta: From Here to Eternity, Autograph, 2020 (which won the Kraszna-Krausz Photobook Award 2021). His forthcoming publication is titled London 1982 (Stanley Barker, 2021).

He is a professorial fellow at UCA, Farnham; visiting lecturer at Kingston University and visiting tutor at the Royal College of Art, London. He was lead curator for the Houston Fotofest in 2018. His work is in many private and public collections including; George Eastman House (Rochester, USA); Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Royal Ontario Museum; Tate Modern; Harvard University and the Museum of Modern Art.

The artist lives and works in London.