[2][3] Singh belonged to a tradition of small-format street photography, working in color, that to him, represented the intrinsic value of Indian aesthetics.
[7] Singh published 14 well-received books on the Ganges, Calcutta, Benares, his native Rajasthan, Grand Trunk Road, and the Hindustan Ambassador car.
His grandfather was Commander-in-chief of the Jaipur Armed Forces, while his father was a Thakur or feudal landowner of Khetri (now in Jhunjhunu district, Rajasthan).
[13] In the 1970s, Singh moved to Paris and over the following three decades, through rigorous training and exposure, he created a series of portfolios of colour photography on India.
[9][14] In addition to his photographic work, Singh taught in New York at the School of Visual Arts, Columbia University and Cooper Union.
[10] In 1972, he married Anne de Henning, also a photographer, and the couple had a daughter, Devika Singh, who is curator at the Tate Modern and holds a position at Cambridge University.
[16] Upon his death, the art critic Max Kozloff wrote, "If you can imagine what a Rajput miniaturist could have learned from Henri Cartier-Bresson, you'll have a glimmer of Raghubir Singh's aesthetic.
"[17] On 3 December 2017, artist Jaishri Abichandani organized a protest outside the Met Breuer, where Singh's "Modernism on the Ganges" opened as an exhibit on 11 October 2017.