Sheena Sippy belongs to one of India’s premier film families and specializes in film and food photography. Her book Around the World in 80 Plates won the World Gourmand Award for best food photography in 2006. She was the visual consultant for Bollywood Posters, released in September 2008, and her earlier book on Bollywood, Lights Camera Masala, won the World Gold Award for Book Design at the New York Festivals in July 2007.

Sheena is currently working on her next book, Tandoori Legs and Ladies’ Fingers, a culinary journey through India. A food writer who has wandered around the world, plate and pen in hand; and a photographer whose food photos make you want to taste the page, this feisty pair travels the length and breadth of the country in search of culinary heaven. Armed with their expertise and enthusiasm, they ferret out family tables laden with robust traditional food and delicate festival favorites; eateries that serve up authentic local fare; and farms, backyards and backwaters that harvest the freshest of fish and tangiest kokum fruit, mountains of coconut and hand-grown spices, and other regional bounty of the land. This is a celebration of the unity as well as the diversity of the cuisine of India, of a hundred different communities, big and small, with myriad influences of centuries wafting into their kitchens, of food and feasting.

Over the last decade, having done assignments with personalities as varied as Amitabh Bachchan, Aishwarya Rai, Imran Khan, Lord Wedgewood, Matthew Modine, Naomi Campbell and Zakir Husain, Sheena has had her portraits, food & lifestyle features published in magazines as varied as British Vogue, Elle, The London Independent Review, Time, Cosmopolitan, Verve and The Taj Magazine.

Sheena had her first solo exhibition in Bombay in September 2002, titled Under the Influence of Marilyn and Other Portraits of Childhood. Then in March 2003 followed another exhibition of a mixed media collection of portraits of Indian film stars for which she collaborated with street children for a fund raising event for an NGO. She has also been part of many group exhibitions such as AIPA, Exhibit A and Freedom of Expression. In 1997, she was part of a photographic exhibition on women in India, 'In Black and White', an ambitious project that traveled India and the world and covered the works of over 40 Indian and foreign photographers including Sebastiao Salgado, Max Vadukul, Michael Ackerman, Jay Ullal and Zana Briski.

Solo Exhibitions

September 2004

“Mera Star” exhibit featured in Asia Week in Milan, Italy

March 2003

“Mera Star” A mixed media collection in collaboration with street children of Bombay

Kamalnayan Bajaj Hall, Bajaj Bhavan, Bombay, India

September/ October 2002

“Under the Influence of Marilyn & Other Portraits of Childhood”

Gallery Chemould, Bombay, India

February 2001

Kala Ghoda Arts Festival,

Indigo, Bombay, India

Group Exhibitions/Auctions:

April 2004

Participated as the only photographer in a group of prominent Indian Artists at an auction for an NGO, Akanksha Foundation, conducted by Christies in New York City

September 2003

Participated in an auction for Magic Bus, an NGO, conducted by Christies in London

December 2002

Participated as the only photographer in a group of prominent Indian artists for an exhibition and Art Auction conducted by Christies for an NGO, Akanksha Foundation, Bombay

1997

“IN BLACK AND WHITE,” 50 Years and the Indian Woman

Traveling exhibition sponsored by the Ford Foundation:

Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Calcutta

Prince of Wales Museum, Mumbai

Jawahar Kala Kendra, Jaipur

A.N Hutheesinh Visual Arts Centre, Ahemdabad

Images Art Gallery, Bangalore

Lalitha Kala Academy, Cochin

Lalit Kala Academy, New Delhi

La Filature, Mulhouse, France

Admit One Gallery, New York

1997

“India: A celebration of Independence,” Traveling exhibition:

Philadelphia Museum of Art

Royal Festival Hall, London

National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi

National gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai

Victoria Memorial Museum, Calcutta

Palazzo Reale Argengario. Milan

Lalit Kala Academy, Chennai

Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond

Indianapolis Museum of Art

Knoxville Museum of Art

Chicago Cultural Center

1996

Exhibit A

Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay