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Henry Wilson spent his childhood in Nigeria where he took his first photographs at the age of eight: elephants taken with a Kodak box-brownie camera. He studied photography at the Chelsea School of Art and the London College of Print, from which he gained a first class degree. Having already established a fascination with India (encouraged by one of his school teachers who was from Mayo College in Ajmer) he then completed a book commissions for the Maharaja of Baroda, involving an eight-month tour of India photographing temples and religious shrines. He was subsequently commissioned to take the location photographs for Madhur Jaffrey’s A taste of India (Pavilion Books, 1985), work singled out by the New York Times for its quality and contribution to the book. In the same year his photographic study of Benares, prepared through visits over four years, was published by Thames and Hudson (1985), and led to several television intervies and a documentary on him for Indian national television. It has remained the first and definitive photographic work on the city. His continuing photography of India has been seen throughout the world, taking in major advertising campaigns by airlines, National Geographic Magazine, Time Life and numerous important reference works including Thames and Hudson’s History of Art series and The Legend of Rama; Artistic Vision(Marg Publicatins, Bombay, 1994).

His Indian photography has been used for cover designs for such leading international writers as Salman Rushdie and Anita Desai. In 2006 he was the principle contributor to a new guide book on Rajasthan for Insight Guides, London. In the same year he was commissioned by the same publisher to produce an exclusive set of photographs for a guide book on Delhi, published in 2006. In 2001 his book, India – interiors design decoration was published by Conran Octopus. It is devoted to one of his favorite subjects – Indian Interiors. Thames and Hudson has recently published his new book India_Contemporary (2007).

From the mid 1980’s Henry Wilson began to develop an interest in interiors photography and is now acknowledged as one of the world’s foremost photographers in this genre. He regularly contributes to the leading magazines, writing his own articles accompanied with his photographs, including The World of Interiors and the four Architectural Digest magazines – America (Los Angeles), Italy, Germany and France – and his work is regularly published world-wide. He was the major contributor to the style book London Living (Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 1997, with interiors ranging from faded period splendor to ultra-modern minimalism. He also contributed to the Taschen book 2001, London Interiors, for which he had the front cover and several houses.

Exhibitions

Open Studios Winter 08
Gas Works, Michael Raod
London, November 2008

Bicha Art New Work 08
Long Gallery Wyndham Grand
London, November 2008

Henry Wilson In India
Gallery Space, C&W Hospital Arts
London, October 2008

Bicha Art Summer 08 Group Show
Long Gallery Wyndham Grand
London, July 2008

BOOKS

H.Wilson: India Contemporary, Thames and Hudson, 2007

H. Wilson: India: Interiors, Conran Octopus, 2001

The Legend of Rama: Artistic vision, Marg Publications, Bombay 1994

Madhur Jaffrey: A Taste of India, Pavilion, 1985

H. Wilson: Benares, Thames and Hudson, 1985