World of Indian Art

Investigating the artist’s unparalleled style and technique, Neither Earth, Nor Sky studies his unique visual language. It includes Dave’s rarely seen early figurative works made under the tutelage of N S. Bendre and K. G. Subramanyan at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda as well as his beeswax and encaustic canvases and layered watercolours. For the first time, Dave’s stark black-and-white graphic watercolours on the Indo-Pak war, a body of work that is political and shows him as a humanitarian, are also being publicly exhibited. It explores his persistent exploration of the word or akshara, the theory of sounds and the aesthetics of bhava—emotion arising from form and colour—instilling each composition with a rasa, as well as the incorporation of textures using gravel, wax and sand that evoke earthy topographies. Dave’s abstract iconography, beginning in the early 1950s, adapted to modernism, aesthetic continuity and transcultural exchange. He altered, rejected and improvised the archaic image into a resonant form resembling an ancient script. Dave’s conscious redefining of the Devanagari script from Indian and Nepalese languages into a renewed aesthetic reflecting its archaic, acoustic and ornate characteristics, places him among the pioneers of calligraphic modernism prevalent in the South Asian subcontinent during the 1960s. The exhibition will open at DAG, New Delhi on 15 July and will remain on display until 10 September 2023.

To view the exhibition

In 1949, Jamini Roy moved from his modest Baghbazar home in north Calcutta to the genteel neighbourhood of Ballygunge Place, at the time an open area with bungalows in a neighbourhood occupied by professionals. Here, as his practice grew, so did his family, and the artist added rooms and floors to the home in which he lived till his passing away in 1972. Four years later, the Government of India declared him a National Treasure artist. In March 2023, the historic home of India’s most loved modernist was acquired by India’s most respected art company, DAG, for the express purpose of creating India’s first world-class private single-artist museum and cultural resource centre on the life, work and times of this pioneering artist. India has a lacuna of professionally run private art museums and there are no professionally run single-artist museums in the country, a gap that DAG hopes to fill with the restoration of the 75-year-old historical house with the help of conservation architects and designers. The Jamini Roy House Museum is envisioned as a tribute to the artist, and the values of simplicity, creativity and universalism that he espoused.

DAG was established in New Delhi in 1993 and the capital has played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the country’s largest and most respected art institution. It began in 1993 at Hauz Khas Village, which was then a sleepy outpost in the city with a historic character. But once the village became a trendy address for bars, lounges and fashion boutiques, DAG felt the need for a new location in keeping with its mandate of accessibility as well as the right environment in which to view art. The gallery, therefore, re-located to The Claridges in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi where its exhibitions proved a grand success.

To serve the ambitious nature of DAG’s growth, the need for larger galleries was soon felt. The new galleries are located on Janpath adjacent to Windsor Place within walking distance of hotels and the city’s shopping districts. With two galleries, it can host two simultaneous exhibitions or a single larger one. A rooftop terrace is ideal for events, conversations and other activities DAG may want to host from time to time.

DAG takes a significant step towards its vision of making art accessible for all, allocating over 180 artworks and archival artefacts from the collection to its Museums Programme. With the launch of the new website, these works are now on view online.

The works on view as a part of the digital museum are drawn primarily from DAG’s historic collection of Bengal art, ranging across the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It provides a unique resource for art lovers to explore the evolution of art in the region, at a time when Calcutta became a hub for global exchanges as the capital of the British Empire. Starting with experiments with academic art in the early days of the colony, the collection traverses the artistic developments of the Swadeshi period and the tumultuous years before and after Independence. In addition, there are a range of photographs and objects from DAG’s archives, presented as capsule collections that delve into specific micro-histories, and open up new areas of research.

Accompanied with illustrated stories, timelines and videos this growing online collection brings the museum experience into our homes and is envisioned as an enduring resource that can be savoured over time for learning, analysis and simply for the love of art!

Explore the collection online

The Art Lab is a travelling, popup museum that takes art into schools, making DAG’s extensive collection directly accessible to young people. Over two weeks, students immerse themselves in the exhibition and take over as artists, researchers, and curators to create their own museum. The exhibition is modular by design, and by the end of the process it takes a completely different shape and form as students intervene with their ideas and creative expressions.

Art Lab also engages with the wider community, with students across different classes, parents, local officials, and partner schools who visit the exhibition on Open House days when the classroom is teeming with the energy and engagement of a busy day at the museum. As a part of Art Lab, DAG also offers a workshop for teachers where they explore simple tools for integrating art in their lessons, and build shared knowledge about art based pedagogies.

Started in Kolkata in April 2022, Art Lab has now travelled to six schools, adding a Bengali module for first generation learners so that the programme can be accessed widely, across socio-economic barriers, as the museum travels across the country.

See video

Four latest issue of the Journal we focused on a thematic of travel and mountains. Both have provided ample opportunities and sites of experimentation for Indian artists to push their skills in representing views that are not easily seen by most. We travelled to the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York too, to give you a glimpse of this peripatetic artist and writer's contribution to American life and art, as he made fragments of the Himalayan world and its diverse cultures available to Americans.

We also spoke to Carol Huh about an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art that focuses on Indian contemporary photographers who study landscapes and feature Indian artists who sketched their way to the hills, including M. V. Dhurandhar and Benode Behari Mukherjee.

Investigating the artist’s unparalleled style and technique, Neither Earth, Nor Sky studies his unique visual language. It includes Dave’s rarely seen early figurative works made under the tutelage of N S. Bendre and K. G. Subramanyan at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda as well as his beeswax and encaustic canvases and layered watercolours. For the first time, Dave’s stark black-and-white graphic watercolours on the Indo-Pak war, a body of work that is political and shows him as a humanitarian, are also being publicly exhibited. It explores his persistent exploration of the word or akshara, the theory of sounds and the aesthetics of bhava—emotion arising from form and colour—instilling each composition with a rasa, as well as the incorporation of textures using gravel, wax and sand that evoke earthy topographies. Dave’s abstract iconography, beginning in the early 1950s, adapted to modernism, aesthetic continuity and transcultural exchange. He altered, rejected and improvised the archaic image into a resonant form resembling an ancient script. Dave’s conscious redefining of the Devanagari script from Indian and Nepalese languages into a renewed aesthetic reflecting its archaic, acoustic and ornate characteristics, places him among the pioneers of calligraphic modernism prevalent in the South Asian subcontinent during the 1960s. The exhibition will open at DAG, New Delhi on 15 July and will remain on display until 10 September 2023.

To view the exhibition

In 1949, Jamini Roy moved from his modest Baghbazar home in north Calcutta to the genteel neighbourhood of Ballygunge Place, at the time an open area with bungalows in a neighbourhood occupied by professionals. Here, as his practice grew, so did his family, and the artist added rooms and floors to the home in which he lived till his passing away in 1972. Four years later, the Government of India declared him a National Treasure artist. In March 2023, the historic home of India’s most loved modernist was acquired by India’s most respected art company, DAG, for the express purpose of creating India’s first world-class private single-artist museum and cultural resource centre on the life, work and times of this pioneering artist. India has a lacuna of professionally run private art museums and there are no professionally run single-artist museums in the country, a gap that DAG hopes to fill with the restoration of the 75-year-old historical house with the help of conservation architects and designers. The Jamini Roy House Museum is envisioned as a tribute to the artist, and the values of simplicity, creativity and universalism that he espoused.

DAG was established in New Delhi in 1993 and the capital has played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the country’s largest and most respected art institution. It began in 1993 at Hauz Khas Village, which was then a sleepy outpost in the city with a historic character. But once the village became a trendy address for bars, lounges and fashion boutiques, DAG felt the need for a new location in keeping with its mandate of accessibility as well as the right environment in which to view art. The gallery, therefore, re-located to The Claridges in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi where its exhibitions proved a grand success.

To serve the ambitious nature of DAG’s growth, the need for larger galleries was soon felt. The new galleries are located on Janpath adjacent to Windsor Place within walking distance of hotels and the city’s shopping districts. With two galleries, it can host two simultaneous exhibitions or a single larger one. A rooftop terrace is ideal for events, conversations and other activities DAG may want to host from time to time.

DAG takes a significant step towards its vision of making art accessible for all, allocating over 180 artworks and archival artefacts from the collection to its Museums Programme. With the launch of the new website, these works are now on view online.

The works on view as a part of the digital museum are drawn primarily from DAG’s historic collection of Bengal art, ranging across the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It provides a unique resource for art lovers to explore the evolution of art in the region, at a time when Calcutta became a hub for global exchanges as the capital of the British Empire. Starting with experiments with academic art in the early days of the colony, the collection traverses the artistic developments of the Swadeshi period and the tumultuous years before and after Independence. In addition, there are a range of photographs and objects from DAG’s archives, presented as capsule collections that delve into specific micro-histories, and open up new areas of research.

Accompanied with illustrated stories, timelines and videos this growing online collection brings the museum experience into our homes and is envisioned as an enduring resource that can be savoured over time for learning, analysis and simply for the love of art!

Explore the collection online

The Art Lab is a travelling, popup museum that takes art into schools, making DAG’s extensive collection directly accessible to young people. Over two weeks, students immerse themselves in the exhibition and take over as artists, researchers, and curators to create their own museum. The exhibition is modular by design, and by the end of the process it takes a completely different shape and form as students intervene with their ideas and creative expressions.

Art Lab also engages with the wider community, with students across different classes, parents, local officials, and partner schools who visit the exhibition on Open House days when the classroom is teeming with the energy and engagement of a busy day at the museum. As a part of Art Lab, DAG also offers a workshop for teachers where they explore simple tools for integrating art in their lessons, and build shared knowledge about art based pedagogies.

Started in Kolkata in April 2022, Art Lab has now travelled to six schools, adding a Bengali module for first generation learners so that the programme can be accessed widely, across socio-economic barriers, as the museum travels across the country.

See video

Four latest issue of the Journal we focused on a thematic of travel and mountains. Both have provided ample opportunities and sites of experimentation for Indian artists to push their skills in representing views that are not easily seen by most. We travelled to the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York too, to give you a glimpse of this peripatetic artist and writer's contribution to American life and art, as he made fragments of the Himalayan world and its diverse cultures available to Americans.

We also spoke to Carol Huh about an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art that focuses on Indian contemporary photographers who study landscapes and feature Indian artists who sketched their way to the hills, including M. V. Dhurandhar and Benode Behari Mukherjee.

Investigating the artist’s unparalleled style and technique, Neither Earth, Nor Sky studies his unique visual language. It includes Dave’s rarely seen early figurative works made under the tutelage of N S. Bendre and K. G. Subramanyan at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda as well as his beeswax and encaustic canvases and layered watercolours. For the first time, Dave’s stark black-and-white graphic watercolours on the Indo-Pak war, a body of work that is political and shows him as a humanitarian, are also being publicly exhibited. It explores his persistent exploration of the word or akshara, the theory of sounds and the aesthetics of bhava—emotion arising from form and colour—instilling each composition with a rasa, as well as the incorporation of textures using gravel, wax and sand that evoke earthy topographies. Dave’s abstract iconography, beginning in the early 1950s, adapted to modernism, aesthetic continuity and transcultural exchange. He altered, rejected and improvised the archaic image into a resonant form resembling an ancient script. Dave’s conscious redefining of the Devanagari script from Indian and Nepalese languages into a renewed aesthetic reflecting its archaic, acoustic and ornate characteristics, places him among the pioneers of calligraphic modernism prevalent in the South Asian subcontinent during the 1960s. The exhibition will open at DAG, New Delhi on 15 July and will remain on display until 10 September 2023.

To view the exhibition

In 1949, Jamini Roy moved from his modest Baghbazar home in north Calcutta to the genteel neighbourhood of Ballygunge Place, at the time an open area with bungalows in a neighbourhood occupied by professionals. Here, as his practice grew, so did his family, and the artist added rooms and floors to the home in which he lived till his passing away in 1972. Four years later, the Government of India declared him a National Treasure artist. In March 2023, the historic home of India’s most loved modernist was acquired by India’s most respected art company, DAG, for the express purpose of creating India’s first world-class private single-artist museum and cultural resource centre on the life, work and times of this pioneering artist. India has a lacuna of professionally run private art museums and there are no professionally run single-artist museums in the country, a gap that DAG hopes to fill with the restoration of the 75-year-old historical house with the help of conservation architects and designers. The Jamini Roy House Museum is envisioned as a tribute to the artist, and the values of simplicity, creativity and universalism that he espoused.

DAG was established in New Delhi in 1993 and the capital has played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the country’s largest and most respected art institution. It began in 1993 at Hauz Khas Village, which was then a sleepy outpost in the city with a historic character. But once the village became a trendy address for bars, lounges and fashion boutiques, DAG felt the need for a new location in keeping with its mandate of accessibility as well as the right environment in which to view art. The gallery, therefore, re-located to The Claridges in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi where its exhibitions proved a grand success.

To serve the ambitious nature of DAG’s growth, the need for larger galleries was soon felt. The new galleries are located on Janpath adjacent to Windsor Place within walking distance of hotels and the city’s shopping districts. With two galleries, it can host two simultaneous exhibitions or a single larger one. A rooftop terrace is ideal for events, conversations and other activities DAG may want to host from time to time.

DAG takes a significant step towards its vision of making art accessible for all, allocating over 180 artworks and archival artefacts from the collection to its Museums Programme. With the launch of the new website, these works are now on view online.

The works on view as a part of the digital museum are drawn primarily from DAG’s historic collection of Bengal art, ranging across the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It provides a unique resource for art lovers to explore the evolution of art in the region, at a time when Calcutta became a hub for global exchanges as the capital of the British Empire. Starting with experiments with academic art in the early days of the colony, the collection traverses the artistic developments of the Swadeshi period and the tumultuous years before and after Independence. In addition, there are a range of photographs and objects from DAG’s archives, presented as capsule collections that delve into specific micro-histories, and open up new areas of research.

Accompanied with illustrated stories, timelines and videos this growing online collection brings the museum experience into our homes and is envisioned as an enduring resource that can be savoured over time for learning, analysis and simply for the love of art!

Explore the collection online

The Art Lab is a travelling, popup museum that takes art into schools, making DAG’s extensive collection directly accessible to young people. Over two weeks, students immerse themselves in the exhibition and take over as artists, researchers, and curators to create their own museum. The exhibition is modular by design, and by the end of the process it takes a completely different shape and form as students intervene with their ideas and creative expressions.

Art Lab also engages with the wider community, with students across different classes, parents, local officials, and partner schools who visit the exhibition on Open House days when the classroom is teeming with the energy and engagement of a busy day at the museum. As a part of Art Lab, DAG also offers a workshop for teachers where they explore simple tools for integrating art in their lessons, and build shared knowledge about art based pedagogies.

Started in Kolkata in April 2022, Art Lab has now travelled to six schools, adding a Bengali module for first generation learners so that the programme can be accessed widely, across socio-economic barriers, as the museum travels across the country.

See video

Four latest issue of the Journal we focused on a thematic of travel and mountains. Both have provided ample opportunities and sites of experimentation for Indian artists to push their skills in representing views that are not easily seen by most. We travelled to the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York too, to give you a glimpse of this peripatetic artist and writer's contribution to American life and art, as he made fragments of the Himalayan world and its diverse cultures available to Americans.

We also spoke to Carol Huh about an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art that focuses on Indian contemporary photographers who study landscapes and feature Indian artists who sketched their way to the hills, including M. V. Dhurandhar and Benode Behari Mukherjee.

Investigating the artist’s unparalleled style and technique, Neither Earth, Nor Sky studies his unique visual language. It includes Dave’s rarely seen early figurative works made under the tutelage of N S. Bendre and K. G. Subramanyan at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda as well as his beeswax and encaustic canvases and layered watercolours. For the first time, Dave’s stark black-and-white graphic watercolours on the Indo-Pak war, a body of work that is political and shows him as a humanitarian, are also being publicly exhibited. It explores his persistent exploration of the word or akshara, the theory of sounds and the aesthetics of bhava—emotion arising from form and colour—instilling each composition with a rasa, as well as the incorporation of textures using gravel, wax and sand that evoke earthy topographies. Dave’s abstract iconography, beginning in the early 1950s, adapted to modernism, aesthetic continuity and transcultural exchange. He altered, rejected and improvised the archaic image into a resonant form resembling an ancient script. Dave’s conscious redefining of the Devanagari script from Indian and Nepalese languages into a renewed aesthetic reflecting its archaic, acoustic and ornate characteristics, places him among the pioneers of calligraphic modernism prevalent in the South Asian subcontinent during the 1960s. The exhibition will open at DAG, New Delhi on 15 July and will remain on display until 10 September 2023.

To view the exhibition

In 1949, Jamini Roy moved from his modest Baghbazar home in north Calcutta to the genteel neighbourhood of Ballygunge Place, at the time an open area with bungalows in a neighbourhood occupied by professionals. Here, as his practice grew, so did his family, and the artist added rooms and floors to the home in which he lived till his passing away in 1972. Four years later, the Government of India declared him a National Treasure artist. In March 2023, the historic home of India’s most loved modernist was acquired by India’s most respected art company, DAG, for the express purpose of creating India’s first world-class private single-artist museum and cultural resource centre on the life, work and times of this pioneering artist. India has a lacuna of professionally run private art museums and there are no professionally run single-artist museums in the country, a gap that DAG hopes to fill with the restoration of the 75-year-old historical house with the help of conservation architects and designers. The Jamini Roy House Museum is envisioned as a tribute to the artist, and the values of simplicity, creativity and universalism that he espoused.

DAG was established in New Delhi in 1993 and the capital has played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the country’s largest and most respected art institution. It began in 1993 at Hauz Khas Village, which was then a sleepy outpost in the city with a historic character. But once the village became a trendy address for bars, lounges and fashion boutiques, DAG felt the need for a new location in keeping with its mandate of accessibility as well as the right environment in which to view art. The gallery, therefore, re-located to The Claridges in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi where its exhibitions proved a grand success.

To serve the ambitious nature of DAG’s growth, the need for larger galleries was soon felt. The new galleries are located on Janpath adjacent to Windsor Place within walking distance of hotels and the city’s shopping districts. With two galleries, it can host two simultaneous exhibitions or a single larger one. A rooftop terrace is ideal for events, conversations and other activities DAG may want to host from time to time.

DAG takes a significant step towards its vision of making art accessible for all, allocating over 180 artworks and archival artefacts from the collection to its Museums Programme. With the launch of the new website, these works are now on view online.

The works on view as a part of the digital museum are drawn primarily from DAG’s historic collection of Bengal art, ranging across the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It provides a unique resource for art lovers to explore the evolution of art in the region, at a time when Calcutta became a hub for global exchanges as the capital of the British Empire. Starting with experiments with academic art in the early days of the colony, the collection traverses the artistic developments of the Swadeshi period and the tumultuous years before and after Independence. In addition, there are a range of photographs and objects from DAG’s archives, presented as capsule collections that delve into specific micro-histories, and open up new areas of research.

Accompanied with illustrated stories, timelines and videos this growing online collection brings the museum experience into our homes and is envisioned as an enduring resource that can be savoured over time for learning, analysis and simply for the love of art!

Explore the collection online

The Art Lab is a travelling, popup museum that takes art into schools, making DAG’s extensive collection directly accessible to young people. Over two weeks, students immerse themselves in the exhibition and take over as artists, researchers, and curators to create their own museum. The exhibition is modular by design, and by the end of the process it takes a completely different shape and form as students intervene with their ideas and creative expressions.

Art Lab also engages with the wider community, with students across different classes, parents, local officials, and partner schools who visit the exhibition on Open House days when the classroom is teeming with the energy and engagement of a busy day at the museum. As a part of Art Lab, DAG also offers a workshop for teachers where they explore simple tools for integrating art in their lessons, and build shared knowledge about art based pedagogies.

Started in Kolkata in April 2022, Art Lab has now travelled to six schools, adding a Bengali module for first generation learners so that the programme can be accessed widely, across socio-economic barriers, as the museum travels across the country.

See video

Four latest issue of the Journal we focused on a thematic of travel and mountains. Both have provided ample opportunities and sites of experimentation for Indian artists to push their skills in representing views that are not easily seen by most. We travelled to the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York too, to give you a glimpse of this peripatetic artist and writer's contribution to American life and art, as he made fragments of the Himalayan world and its diverse cultures available to Americans.

We also spoke to Carol Huh about an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art that focuses on Indian contemporary photographers who study landscapes and feature Indian artists who sketched their way to the hills, including M. V. Dhurandhar and Benode Behari Mukherjee.

Investigating the artist’s unparalleled style and technique, Neither Earth, Nor Sky studies his unique visual language. It includes Dave’s rarely seen early figurative works made under the tutelage of N S. Bendre and K. G. Subramanyan at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda as well as his beeswax and encaustic canvases and layered watercolours. For the first time, Dave’s stark black-and-white graphic watercolours on the Indo-Pak war, a body of work that is political and shows him as a humanitarian, are also being publicly exhibited. It explores his persistent exploration of the word or akshara, the theory of sounds and the aesthetics of bhava—emotion arising from form and colour—instilling each composition with a rasa, as well as the incorporation of textures using gravel, wax and sand that evoke earthy topographies. Dave’s abstract iconography, beginning in the early 1950s, adapted to modernism, aesthetic continuity and transcultural exchange. He altered, rejected and improvised the archaic image into a resonant form resembling an ancient script. Dave’s conscious redefining of the Devanagari script from Indian and Nepalese languages into a renewed aesthetic reflecting its archaic, acoustic and ornate characteristics, places him among the pioneers of calligraphic modernism prevalent in the South Asian subcontinent during the 1960s. The exhibition will open at DAG, New Delhi on 15 July and will remain on display until 10 September 2023.

To view the exhibition

In 1949, Jamini Roy moved from his modest Baghbazar home in north Calcutta to the genteel neighbourhood of Ballygunge Place, at the time an open area with bungalows in a neighbourhood occupied by professionals. Here, as his practice grew, so did his family, and the artist added rooms and floors to the home in which he lived till his passing away in 1972. Four years later, the Government of India declared him a National Treasure artist. In March 2023, the historic home of India’s most loved modernist was acquired by India’s most respected art company, DAG, for the express purpose of creating India’s first world-class private single-artist museum and cultural resource centre on the life, work and times of this pioneering artist. India has a lacuna of professionally run private art museums and there are no professionally run single-artist museums in the country, a gap that DAG hopes to fill with the restoration of the 75-year-old historical house with the help of conservation architects and designers. The Jamini Roy House Museum is envisioned as a tribute to the artist, and the values of simplicity, creativity and universalism that he espoused.

DAG was established in New Delhi in 1993 and the capital has played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the country’s largest and most respected art institution. It began in 1993 at Hauz Khas Village, which was then a sleepy outpost in the city with a historic character. But once the village became a trendy address for bars, lounges and fashion boutiques, DAG felt the need for a new location in keeping with its mandate of accessibility as well as the right environment in which to view art. The gallery, therefore, re-located to The Claridges in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi where its exhibitions proved a grand success.

To serve the ambitious nature of DAG’s growth, the need for larger galleries was soon felt. The new galleries are located on Janpath adjacent to Windsor Place within walking distance of hotels and the city’s shopping districts. With two galleries, it can host two simultaneous exhibitions or a single larger one. A rooftop terrace is ideal for events, conversations and other activities DAG may want to host from time to time.

DAG takes a significant step towards its vision of making art accessible for all, allocating over 180 artworks and archival artefacts from the collection to its Museums Programme. With the launch of the new website, these works are now on view online.

The works on view as a part of the digital museum are drawn primarily from DAG’s historic collection of Bengal art, ranging across the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It provides a unique resource for art lovers to explore the evolution of art in the region, at a time when Calcutta became a hub for global exchanges as the capital of the British Empire. Starting with experiments with academic art in the early days of the colony, the collection traverses the artistic developments of the Swadeshi period and the tumultuous years before and after Independence. In addition, there are a range of photographs and objects from DAG’s archives, presented as capsule collections that delve into specific micro-histories, and open up new areas of research.

Accompanied with illustrated stories, timelines and videos this growing online collection brings the museum experience into our homes and is envisioned as an enduring resource that can be savoured over time for learning, analysis and simply for the love of art!

Explore the collection online

The Art Lab is a travelling, popup museum that takes art into schools, making DAG’s extensive collection directly accessible to young people. Over two weeks, students immerse themselves in the exhibition and take over as artists, researchers, and curators to create their own museum. The exhibition is modular by design, and by the end of the process it takes a completely different shape and form as students intervene with their ideas and creative expressions.

Art Lab also engages with the wider community, with students across different classes, parents, local officials, and partner schools who visit the exhibition on Open House days when the classroom is teeming with the energy and engagement of a busy day at the museum. As a part of Art Lab, DAG also offers a workshop for teachers where they explore simple tools for integrating art in their lessons, and build shared knowledge about art based pedagogies.

Started in Kolkata in April 2022, Art Lab has now travelled to six schools, adding a Bengali module for first generation learners so that the programme can be accessed widely, across socio-economic barriers, as the museum travels across the country.

See video

Four latest issue of the Journal we focused on a thematic of travel and mountains. Both have provided ample opportunities and sites of experimentation for Indian artists to push their skills in representing views that are not easily seen by most. We travelled to the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York too, to give you a glimpse of this peripatetic artist and writer's contribution to American life and art, as he made fragments of the Himalayan world and its diverse cultures available to Americans.

We also spoke to Carol Huh about an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art that focuses on Indian contemporary photographers who study landscapes and feature Indian artists who sketched their way to the hills, including M. V. Dhurandhar and Benode Behari Mukherjee.

Investigating the artist’s unparalleled style and technique, Neither Earth, Nor Sky studies his unique visual language. It includes Dave’s rarely seen early figurative works made under the tutelage of N S. Bendre and K. G. Subramanyan at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda as well as his beeswax and encaustic canvases and layered watercolours. For the first time, Dave’s stark black-and-white graphic watercolours on the Indo-Pak war, a body of work that is political and shows him as a humanitarian, are also being publicly exhibited. It explores his persistent exploration of the word or akshara, the theory of sounds and the aesthetics of bhava—emotion arising from form and colour—instilling each composition with a rasa, as well as the incorporation of textures using gravel, wax and sand that evoke earthy topographies. Dave’s abstract iconography, beginning in the early 1950s, adapted to modernism, aesthetic continuity and transcultural exchange. He altered, rejected and improvised the archaic image into a resonant form resembling an ancient script. Dave’s conscious redefining of the Devanagari script from Indian and Nepalese languages into a renewed aesthetic reflecting its archaic, acoustic and ornate characteristics, places him among the pioneers of calligraphic modernism prevalent in the South Asian subcontinent during the 1960s. The exhibition will open at DAG, New Delhi on 15 July and will remain on display until 10 September 2023.

To view the exhibition

In 1949, Jamini Roy moved from his modest Baghbazar home in north Calcutta to the genteel neighbourhood of Ballygunge Place, at the time an open area with bungalows in a neighbourhood occupied by professionals. Here, as his practice grew, so did his family, and the artist added rooms and floors to the home in which he lived till his passing away in 1972. Four years later, the Government of India declared him a National Treasure artist. In March 2023, the historic home of India’s most loved modernist was acquired by India’s most respected art company, DAG, for the express purpose of creating India’s first world-class private single-artist museum and cultural resource centre on the life, work and times of this pioneering artist. India has a lacuna of professionally run private art museums and there are no professionally run single-artist museums in the country, a gap that DAG hopes to fill with the restoration of the 75-year-old historical house with the help of conservation architects and designers. The Jamini Roy House Museum is envisioned as a tribute to the artist, and the values of simplicity, creativity and universalism that he espoused.

DAG was established in New Delhi in 1993 and the capital has played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the country’s largest and most respected art institution. It began in 1993 at Hauz Khas Village, which was then a sleepy outpost in the city with a historic character. But once the village became a trendy address for bars, lounges and fashion boutiques, DAG felt the need for a new location in keeping with its mandate of accessibility as well as the right environment in which to view art. The gallery, therefore, re-located to The Claridges in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi where its exhibitions proved a grand success.

To serve the ambitious nature of DAG’s growth, the need for larger galleries was soon felt. The new galleries are located on Janpath adjacent to Windsor Place within walking distance of hotels and the city’s shopping districts. With two galleries, it can host two simultaneous exhibitions or a single larger one. A rooftop terrace is ideal for events, conversations and other activities DAG may want to host from time to time.

DAG takes a significant step towards its vision of making art accessible for all, allocating over 180 artworks and archival artefacts from the collection to its Museums Programme. With the launch of the new website, these works are now on view online.

The works on view as a part of the digital museum are drawn primarily from DAG’s historic collection of Bengal art, ranging across the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It provides a unique resource for art lovers to explore the evolution of art in the region, at a time when Calcutta became a hub for global exchanges as the capital of the British Empire. Starting with experiments with academic art in the early days of the colony, the collection traverses the artistic developments of the Swadeshi period and the tumultuous years before and after Independence. In addition, there are a range of photographs and objects from DAG’s archives, presented as capsule collections that delve into specific micro-histories, and open up new areas of research.

Accompanied with illustrated stories, timelines and videos this growing online collection brings the museum experience into our homes and is envisioned as an enduring resource that can be savoured over time for learning, analysis and simply for the love of art!

Explore the collection online

The Art Lab is a travelling, popup museum that takes art into schools, making DAG’s extensive collection directly accessible to young people. Over two weeks, students immerse themselves in the exhibition and take over as artists, researchers, and curators to create their own museum. The exhibition is modular by design, and by the end of the process it takes a completely different shape and form as students intervene with their ideas and creative expressions.

Art Lab also engages with the wider community, with students across different classes, parents, local officials, and partner schools who visit the exhibition on Open House days when the classroom is teeming with the energy and engagement of a busy day at the museum. As a part of Art Lab, DAG also offers a workshop for teachers where they explore simple tools for integrating art in their lessons, and build shared knowledge about art based pedagogies.

Started in Kolkata in April 2022, Art Lab has now travelled to six schools, adding a Bengali module for first generation learners so that the programme can be accessed widely, across socio-economic barriers, as the museum travels across the country.

See video

Four latest issue of the Journal we focused on a thematic of travel and mountains. Both have provided ample opportunities and sites of experimentation for Indian artists to push their skills in representing views that are not easily seen by most. We travelled to the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York too, to give you a glimpse of this peripatetic artist and writer's contribution to American life and art, as he made fragments of the Himalayan world and its diverse cultures available to Americans.

We also spoke to Carol Huh about an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art that focuses on Indian contemporary photographers who study landscapes and feature Indian artists who sketched their way to the hills, including M. V. Dhurandhar and Benode Behari Mukherjee.

Investigating the artist’s unparalleled style and technique, Neither Earth, Nor Sky studies his unique visual language. It includes Dave’s rarely seen early figurative works made under the tutelage of N S. Bendre and K. G. Subramanyan at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda as well as his beeswax and encaustic canvases and layered watercolours. For the first time, Dave’s stark black-and-white graphic watercolours on the Indo-Pak war, a body of work that is political and shows him as a humanitarian, are also being publicly exhibited. It explores his persistent exploration of the word or akshara, the theory of sounds and the aesthetics of bhava—emotion arising from form and colour—instilling each composition with a rasa, as well as the incorporation of textures using gravel, wax and sand that evoke earthy topographies. Dave’s abstract iconography, beginning in the early 1950s, adapted to modernism, aesthetic continuity and transcultural exchange. He altered, rejected and improvised the archaic image into a resonant form resembling an ancient script. Dave’s conscious redefining of the Devanagari script from Indian and Nepalese languages into a renewed aesthetic reflecting its archaic, acoustic and ornate characteristics, places him among the pioneers of calligraphic modernism prevalent in the South Asian subcontinent during the 1960s. The exhibition will open at DAG, New Delhi on 15 July and will remain on display until 10 September 2023.

To view the exhibition

In 1949, Jamini Roy moved from his modest Baghbazar home in north Calcutta to the genteel neighbourhood of Ballygunge Place, at the time an open area with bungalows in a neighbourhood occupied by professionals. Here, as his practice grew, so did his family, and the artist added rooms and floors to the home in which he lived till his passing away in 1972. Four years later, the Government of India declared him a National Treasure artist. In March 2023, the historic home of India’s most loved modernist was acquired by India’s most respected art company, DAG, for the express purpose of creating India’s first world-class private single-artist museum and cultural resource centre on the life, work and times of this pioneering artist. India has a lacuna of professionally run private art museums and there are no professionally run single-artist museums in the country, a gap that DAG hopes to fill with the restoration of the 75-year-old historical house with the help of conservation architects and designers. The Jamini Roy House Museum is envisioned as a tribute to the artist, and the values of simplicity, creativity and universalism that he espoused.

DAG was established in New Delhi in 1993 and the capital has played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the country’s largest and most respected art institution. It began in 1993 at Hauz Khas Village, which was then a sleepy outpost in the city with a historic character. But once the village became a trendy address for bars, lounges and fashion boutiques, DAG felt the need for a new location in keeping with its mandate of accessibility as well as the right environment in which to view art. The gallery, therefore, re-located to The Claridges in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi where its exhibitions proved a grand success.

To serve the ambitious nature of DAG’s growth, the need for larger galleries was soon felt. The new galleries are located on Janpath adjacent to Windsor Place within walking distance of hotels and the city’s shopping districts. With two galleries, it can host two simultaneous exhibitions or a single larger one. A rooftop terrace is ideal for events, conversations and other activities DAG may want to host from time to time.

DAG takes a significant step towards its vision of making art accessible for all, allocating over 180 artworks and archival artefacts from the collection to its Museums Programme. With the launch of the new website, these works are now on view online.

The works on view as a part of the digital museum are drawn primarily from DAG’s historic collection of Bengal art, ranging across the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It provides a unique resource for art lovers to explore the evolution of art in the region, at a time when Calcutta became a hub for global exchanges as the capital of the British Empire. Starting with experiments with academic art in the early days of the colony, the collection traverses the artistic developments of the Swadeshi period and the tumultuous years before and after Independence. In addition, there are a range of photographs and objects from DAG’s archives, presented as capsule collections that delve into specific micro-histories, and open up new areas of research.

Accompanied with illustrated stories, timelines and videos this growing online collection brings the museum experience into our homes and is envisioned as an enduring resource that can be savoured over time for learning, analysis and simply for the love of art!

Explore the collection online

The Art Lab is a travelling, popup museum that takes art into schools, making DAG’s extensive collection directly accessible to young people. Over two weeks, students immerse themselves in the exhibition and take over as artists, researchers, and curators to create their own museum. The exhibition is modular by design, and by the end of the process it takes a completely different shape and form as students intervene with their ideas and creative expressions.

Art Lab also engages with the wider community, with students across different classes, parents, local officials, and partner schools who visit the exhibition on Open House days when the classroom is teeming with the energy and engagement of a busy day at the museum. As a part of Art Lab, DAG also offers a workshop for teachers where they explore simple tools for integrating art in their lessons, and build shared knowledge about art based pedagogies.

Started in Kolkata in April 2022, Art Lab has now travelled to six schools, adding a Bengali module for first generation learners so that the programme can be accessed widely, across socio-economic barriers, as the museum travels across the country.

See video

Four latest issue of the Journal we focused on a thematic of travel and mountains. Both have provided ample opportunities and sites of experimentation for Indian artists to push their skills in representing views that are not easily seen by most. We travelled to the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York too, to give you a glimpse of this peripatetic artist and writer's contribution to American life and art, as he made fragments of the Himalayan world and its diverse cultures available to Americans.

We also spoke to Carol Huh about an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art that focuses on Indian contemporary photographers who study landscapes and feature Indian artists who sketched their way to the hills, including M. V. Dhurandhar and Benode Behari Mukherjee.

Investigating the artist’s unparalleled style and technique, Neither Earth, Nor Sky studies his unique visual language. It includes Dave’s rarely seen early figurative works made under the tutelage of N S. Bendre and K. G. Subramanyan at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda as well as his beeswax and encaustic canvases and layered watercolours. For the first time, Dave’s stark black-and-white graphic watercolours on the Indo-Pak war, a body of work that is political and shows him as a humanitarian, are also being publicly exhibited. It explores his persistent exploration of the word or akshara, the theory of sounds and the aesthetics of bhava—emotion arising from form and colour—instilling each composition with a rasa, as well as the incorporation of textures using gravel, wax and sand that evoke earthy topographies. Dave’s abstract iconography, beginning in the early 1950s, adapted to modernism, aesthetic continuity and transcultural exchange. He altered, rejected and improvised the archaic image into a resonant form resembling an ancient script. Dave’s conscious redefining of the Devanagari script from Indian and Nepalese languages into a renewed aesthetic reflecting its archaic, acoustic and ornate characteristics, places him among the pioneers of calligraphic modernism prevalent in the South Asian subcontinent during the 1960s. The exhibition will open at DAG, New Delhi on 15 July and will remain on display until 10 September 2023.

To view the exhibition

In 1949, Jamini Roy moved from his modest Baghbazar home in north Calcutta to the genteel neighbourhood of Ballygunge Place, at the time an open area with bungalows in a neighbourhood occupied by professionals. Here, as his practice grew, so did his family, and the artist added rooms and floors to the home in which he lived till his passing away in 1972. Four years later, the Government of India declared him a National Treasure artist. In March 2023, the historic home of India’s most loved modernist was acquired by India’s most respected art company, DAG, for the express purpose of creating India’s first world-class private single-artist museum and cultural resource centre on the life, work and times of this pioneering artist. India has a lacuna of professionally run private art museums and there are no professionally run single-artist museums in the country, a gap that DAG hopes to fill with the restoration of the 75-year-old historical house with the help of conservation architects and designers. The Jamini Roy House Museum is envisioned as a tribute to the artist, and the values of simplicity, creativity and universalism that he espoused.

DAG was established in New Delhi in 1993 and the capital has played a pivotal role in the growth and development of the country’s largest and most respected art institution. It began in 1993 at Hauz Khas Village, which was then a sleepy outpost in the city with a historic character. But once the village became a trendy address for bars, lounges and fashion boutiques, DAG felt the need for a new location in keeping with its mandate of accessibility as well as the right environment in which to view art. The gallery, therefore, re-located to The Claridges in the heart of Lutyens’s Delhi where its exhibitions proved a grand success.

To serve the ambitious nature of DAG’s growth, the need for larger galleries was soon felt. The new galleries are located on Janpath adjacent to Windsor Place within walking distance of hotels and the city’s shopping districts. With two galleries, it can host two simultaneous exhibitions or a single larger one. A rooftop terrace is ideal for events, conversations and other activities DAG may want to host from time to time.

DAG takes a significant step towards its vision of making art accessible for all, allocating over 180 artworks and archival artefacts from the collection to its Museums Programme. With the launch of the new website, these works are now on view online.

The works on view as a part of the digital museum are drawn primarily from DAG’s historic collection of Bengal art, ranging across the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. It provides a unique resource for art lovers to explore the evolution of art in the region, at a time when Calcutta became a hub for global exchanges as the capital of the British Empire. Starting with experiments with academic art in the early days of the colony, the collection traverses the artistic developments of the Swadeshi period and the tumultuous years before and after Independence. In addition, there are a range of photographs and objects from DAG’s archives, presented as capsule collections that delve into specific micro-histories, and open up new areas of research.

Accompanied with illustrated stories, timelines and videos this growing online collection brings the museum experience into our homes and is envisioned as an enduring resource that can be savoured over time for learning, analysis and simply for the love of art!

Explore the collection online

The Art Lab is a travelling, popup museum that takes art into schools, making DAG’s extensive collection directly accessible to young people. Over two weeks, students immerse themselves in the exhibition and take over as artists, researchers, and curators to create their own museum. The exhibition is modular by design, and by the end of the process it takes a completely different shape and form as students intervene with their ideas and creative expressions.

Art Lab also engages with the wider community, with students across different classes, parents, local officials, and partner schools who visit the exhibition on Open House days when the classroom is teeming with the energy and engagement of a busy day at the museum. As a part of Art Lab, DAG also offers a workshop for teachers where they explore simple tools for integrating art in their lessons, and build shared knowledge about art based pedagogies.

Started in Kolkata in April 2022, Art Lab has now travelled to six schools, adding a Bengali module for first generation learners so that the programme can be accessed widely, across socio-economic barriers, as the museum travels across the country.

See video

Four latest issue of the Journal we focused on a thematic of travel and mountains. Both have provided ample opportunities and sites of experimentation for Indian artists to push their skills in representing views that are not easily seen by most. We travelled to the Nicholas Roerich Museum in New York too, to give you a glimpse of this peripatetic artist and writer's contribution to American life and art, as he made fragments of the Himalayan world and its diverse cultures available to Americans.

We also spoke to Carol Huh about an exhibition at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Asian Art that focuses on Indian contemporary photographers who study landscapes and feature Indian artists who sketched their way to the hills, including M. V. Dhurandhar and Benode Behari Mukherjee.