Histories in the Making at Bhau Daji Lad: Dates, Tickets & What's on View

Mumbai is getting a rare public look at how India's monuments were first photographed — starting in 1855, barely 16 years after photography itself was invented. Histories in the Making opens at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum on July 22, and the fine print on the invite hints at just how serious the material is.

Histories in the Making: Photographing Indian Monuments, 1855-1920 opens at the Kamalnayan Bajaj Special Exhibitions Gallery, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Byculla, on July 22, 2026, running through August 25, 2026. The exhibition is a collaboration between the museum and DAG, curated by historian Sudeshna Guha, with an invite-preview on Tuesday, July 21, 6-8 pm. Viewing hours are Thursday to Tuesday, 10 am to 5.30 pm — the museum's standard Wednesday closure applies. The show surveys 65 years of monument photography from the medium's earliest decades in India, including works by pioneering figures such as William Johnson and William Henderson, whose 1855-62 albumen prints from wet collodion negatives are cited on the exhibition's own invitation.

This is DAG continuing its most effective strategy: pairing its deep photography holdings with a beloved civic museum instead of keeping them inside a commercial gallery. The Bhau Daji Lad — Mumbai's oldest museum, itself a Victorian-era institution — is the perfect frame for photographs made while the building's own collection was being assembled. Sudeshna Guha is the significant hire here: she's a scholar of archaeology and the photographic archive, not a decorative curator, which signals the show will interrogate how the camera helped colonial-era institutions define what counted as Indian heritage — not just display pretty albumen prints.

Monument photography from 1855-1920 is the visual DNA of how India still sees its own past — these images shaped the Archaeological Survey's priorities and every textbook illustration since. A five-week public run in Byculla makes nationally important archival material free-to-access for anyone with a museum ticket. Expect this to be one of Mumbai's most Instagrammed shows of the monsoon, and expect the scholarship-versus-spectacle conversation to follow it.

The date range is the tell. Starting at 1855 places the show within the first generation of photography in India — the wet collodion era, when a photographer hauled a portable darkroom to a temple site and coated glass plates by hand minutes before exposure. The invite's side-note crediting Johnson and Henderson's image of the ruined Shiva temple at Ambernath — a monument barely 50 km from the museum — quietly localises the whole colonial photographic project: the show opens with Mumbai's own backyard.

Quick Facts

• Preview: Tuesday, July 21, 2026, 6-8 pm (by invitation)

• On view: July 22 - August 25, 2026

• Hours: Thursday-Tuesday, 10 am - 5.30 pm (closed Wednesdays)

• Venue: Kamalnayan Bajaj Special Exhibitions Gallery, Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum, Byculla, Mumbai

• Curator: Sudeshna Guha | Presented by: Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum and DAG

• Access: Standard museum entry; overseas readers can browse DAG's archive at dagworld.com

FAQs

What are the dates for Histories in the Making at the Bhau Daji Lad Museum?

The exhibition runs July 22 to August 25, 2026, open Thursday to Tuesday, 10 am to 5.30 pm. The invite-only preview is July 21, 6-8 pm.

What is the exhibition about?

It surveys photographs of Indian monuments made between 1855 and 1920, from the earliest decades of photography in India. It is curated by Sudeshna Guha and presented by the museum with DAG.

Is the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum open on Wednesdays?

No — the exhibition's listed hours are Thursday through Tuesday, so plan around the Wednesday closure.

Who were William Johnson and William Henderson?

They were among the earliest photographers working in western India, active in the Bombay Photographic Society circle in the 1850s. Their 1855-62 albumen prints, including the Ambernath Shiva temple, feature in the show's invitation imagery.