Mother and Child at Car Window

Mother and Child at Car Window, Bombay, India was made during the monsoon season of 1993 and has become one of the defining photographs of Steve McCurry’s long engagement with the subcontinent. A woman in a red sari holds a young child at the window of a taxi, her hand pressed flat against the wet glass, the child’s face turned toward the interior.

The photograph is taken from inside the vehicle. The dark frame of the door and the corner of the seat occupy the foreground, so the viewer occupies the position of the passenger — separated from the two figures by a pane of streaming water.

The Barrier

The glass is the subject of the image as much as the figures behind it. Rain distorts and softens the outer world, blurring the woman’s features while leaving the child’s eyes unexpectedly clear. The hand against the window is the only element rendered with full sharpness, flattened by contact with the surface.

That physical separation carries an unavoidable social reading. The photograph documents an encounter that takes place across a boundary neither party crosses, and McCurry does not resolve it.

Colour in the Monsoon

The red of the sari dominates a composition otherwise composed of greys, blacks and the desaturated blues of water on glass. The saturation is intensified by the rain rather than diminished by it, the wet fabric holding its colour against the diffusion of everything around it.

McCurry has spoken of the monsoon as a period when Indian street life is transformed, and his monsoon photographs of the 1980s and 1990s constitute a distinct body within his work.

Provenance & Documentation

Signed by the artist. Reference: India 10214, 11/13/2023, proof print.

Provenance: Private Collection