History in the making

Rosemary Behan

• Last Updated: June 22. 2008 11:21PM UAE / June 22. 2008 7:21PM GMT

Pearlers rowing into Dubai Creek (1950). Ronald Codrai courtesy of Gallery One

In the July 1956 issue of National Geographic Magazine, Ronald Codrai wrote of Dubai: “Beneath my veranda lay grunting camels, left hobbled while their owners – tribesmen from the great sand seas of Arabia – shopped in the crowded bazaar. At the beginning of summer I would listen to the chanting of boat crews as they rowed out of the lagoon for the start of another pearl-fishing season. And each fall, when flights of turkey-sized bustards came to the desert, the Sheikh’s falconers would appear again, swaggering about the town with hawks perched on heavy canvas cuffs.”

Dubai, or “Dibai” as it was then known, had a population of just 15,000 and was Trucial Oman’s chief commercial port. Codrai served in the Royal Air Force in the Second World War and had been living in the region since 1948, working for an international oil consortium and travelling widely. Despite its “strangeness”, Codrai loved the Gulf and “came to feel as much fondness for the people of this sere and bitter corner of Arabia as any I know”.

Codrai, who was born in the Indian Himalayas in 1924 and died in 2000, was a keen photographer and friend of Wilfred Thesiger, who wrote similarly of 1949 Dubai in Arabian Sands: “Naked children romped in the shallows, and rowing boats patrolled the creek to pick up passengers from the mouths of alleys between the high coral houses, surmounted with square wind-turrets and pleasingly decorated with plaster moulding. Behind the diversity of houses which lined the waterfront were the souks, covered passageways where merchants sat in the gloom, cross-legged in narrow alcoves among their piled merchandise.”

Such scenes abound in a new exhibition called Old Dubai, currently on show at Gallery One’s new gallery in the Khan Murjan souk in Dubai’s Wafi City. The images show life in the city from the 1940s to the 1980s, and include The Date Seller and Pearlers Rowing into Dubai Creek, both taken in 1950 by Ronald Codrai, and One barrel of Caltex oil, Jumeirah Beach Road, and Children’s Streetplay in Satwa by Anita van der Krol, taken in 1975 and 1976.

There are 54 black and white images, 30 by Ronald Codrai and 24 by Anita van der Krol, who took hundreds of photographs of everyday life in Dubai between 1975 and 1980. Living as an expatriate in Jumeirah, she became one of the first inhabitants of Jebel Ali village. The wife of a Dutch dredging engineer who worked on the Creek, Port Rashid and Mina harbour, Anita shot intimate pictures of Arab men, women and children, winning their confidence and respect by always seeking permission to take pictures.

Both sets of photographs have a simple, documentary style, and are fascinating to anyone living in the UAE. Some of the locations and traditions are still recognisable today, though most have been lost in the city’s rapid development. Gregg Sedgwick, the founder of Gallery One, who published a book called A Portrait of the Jumeirah Beach Road in 2003, said: “When I first started trying to get my book published about 10 years ago, just before the Jumeirah Beach Road was dug up, it was quite difficult because it showed Dubai in a very raw state. But my argument is that this is the whole nature of the place, and sales of the book now are better than when I first launched it.”

Sedgwick said that the speed of development in Dubai had produced a “huge interest” in the city’s past. “Sometimes it is those small moments in time which shape a place. This is particularly true of Anita’s pictures which show things which didn’t seem very relevant at the time, like kids playing in the street or the man transporting a barrel of oil by donkey along the Jumeirah Beach Road in 1975. It is incredible how much has changed since then.”

Sedgwick said that UAE nationals have been “incredibly complimentary” about the exhibition, which opened on June 15 and runs until July 15. “There has been a huge appreciation for us putting this together and we are getting a huge amount of interest.” The work of both photographers is for sale. Ronald Codrai’s works are digital Lambda prints on matt paper, priced at Dh1,750 each, while Amita van der Krol’s, which are limited edition and hand or machine printed, start at Dh3,450.

Gallery One is running a parallel exhibition called 3 Icons at its Souk Madinat Jumeirah shop. This brings together limited edition prints of Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and James Dean by Bertram Stern, Richard Miller, Douglas Kirkland and Alfred Wertheimer.

Stern and Kirkland both photographed Monroe. Stern, most famously, shot a series of images for Vogue at the Hotel Bel Air which have become known as The Last Sitting, six weeks before her death in August 1962. Eleven of these images are on sale in the exhibition, priced at Dh24,950 each. Kirkland’s images of Monroe were taken in 1961 for the 25th anniversary issue of Look magazine. Kirkland devised a simple set of a bed with white silk sheets, and later wrote a book called An Evening With Marilyn. Nine of Kirkland’s images of Monroe in bed are available for Dh17,950, in limited editions of between 25 and 72 images.

Richard Miller was given privileged access to James Dean, shooting him in Texas in 1955 on the set of George Stevens’ film Giant. Miller’s unassuming and friendly nature put Dean at ease in front of the camera and captured him laughing, joking, sleeping, playing, reading, eating and thinking.

Rabih Beaini, director of operations for Gallery One, said this set of pictures “shows Dean really vulnerable, while he wasn’t really paying attention to the camera.” Shortly after Miller finished shooting, Dean was killed in a car accident. Ten limited edition prints are on sale, priced at Dh13,950.

Alfred Wertheimer photographed a 21-year-old Elvis Presley in 1956, just before his fame skyrocketed. The resulting collection documents Elvis in raw, personal and unguarded moments at rehearsals, before his image came under the control of agents. The three images are gelatin silver prints and cost from Dh6,450.

rbehan@thenational.ae