Bombay Framed

Gallery Exhibition

Bombay Framed

People, Memory, Metropolis

Mumbai: 22nd February 2026 – 11th April 2026
Venue: DAG Gallery 2, The Taj Mahal Palace, Apollo Bunder, Mumbai
Monday – Saturday, 11:00 am to 7:00 pm

Once a scattered group of seven islets joined by land reclamation, Bombay grew from a colonial port into a bustling industrial, financial and cultural centre. From its early role as a trading hub of the eighteenth century to its emergence as a site of political resistance during the freedom struggle in the twentieth century, Bombay has continually been forged by history and significant events and people.

No two individuals have ever viewed this city in the same way. Bombay has always been a tapestry of overlapping worlds: crowded streets and quiet shorelines, mills and markets, neighbourhoods of hardship and comfort, moments of relentless motion and unexpected calm. Bombay Framed: People, Memory, Metropolis invites viewers to see the city through the many images, stories and memories that have shaped it over centuries. Bringing together paintings, photographs, prints, archival material and film memorabilia, the exhibition seeks to hold its shifting soul.

Early colonial views illustrate how British artists mapped and mediated the city’s landscapes, architecture and coastline. In contrast, modern Indian artists turned their gaze inward—to the Bombay’s everyday rhythms and the people who animate it and make it their own. Portraits of royalty, political leaders, reformers, philanthropists and working communities highlight the many individuals and groups who shaped the city’s civic, social and cultural fabric, from Parsis and Kolis to migrants who have built its mills, docks and neighbourhoods.

Cinema, too, finds it place here, for no story of Bombay is complete without it. Vintage posters and J. H. Thakkar’s luminous studio photographs reveal how the city did not merely host the movies—it became their heartbeat and their muse.

Seen across media, Bombay emerges as a city of contradictions—restless yet resilient, chaotic yet dream-filled. Its monsoons, trains, crowded pavements and sea winds form a rhythm that artists have long tried to capture. Bombay Framed celebrates these many impressions, offering a reminder that the metropolis is shaped as much by its people and memories as by its skyline and sea.

Artists

A. S. Tendulkar

Albert Chavaz

Benjamin Zobel

Charles R. Gerrard

Chittaprosad

Clarkson Stanfield

E. Goodall

Edward Orme

Edwin Lord Weeks

Francis Frith & Co.

G.S. Trilokekar

H. Hormusji Deboo

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Henry Hinton

Henry Martens

Henry Salt

Herbert Arnould Olivier

Isidore Laurent Deroy

J. A. Lalkaka

J. D. Gondhalekar

J. H. Thakkar

James Rattray

James Stephen Gresley

Julian Barrow

M. F. Pithawalla

Narayan Vinayak Virkar

P. B. Chinoy

Pestonji E. Bomanji

R. D. Panvalkar

Robert Melville Grindlay

Rudolph Ackermann

S. G. Thakar Singh

S. H. Raza

S. L. Haldankar

Samuel Bourne & Charles Shepherd

Sir Leslie Mathew Ward

Thomas Studdert

William Carpenter

William Johnson

William Johnson and William Henderson

William Westall

'In re-visiting the history of Bombay through its intertwined traditions of image-making, we intuit that along with the money and the mills, movies and monsoons, Mumbai is also defined by the textures of its midnight, the dreams of its working girls, and the depths held within its sea and its sky.'

– Debashree Mukherjee

all artworks

press

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Weekend events you can’t miss in Mumbai (Feb 20-22)

Hindustan Times

19 February 2026

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Many layers, one city

Mid-Day

20 February 2026

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Portraits of restlessness

Mumbai Mirror

20 February 2026

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Metropolis, in motion

India Today

28 February 2026

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Metropolis, in motion | 'Bombay Framed' exhibition at DAG Mumbai

MSN

28 February 2026

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DAG art and heritage festival brings ‘The City as a Museum’ to Mumbai: Details inside

Firstpost

3 March 2026

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The concrete archive

Mumbai Mirror

6 March 2026

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CNT Culture Calendar: What to do across India this March

Condé Nast Traveller

6 March 2026

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Mumbai through the eyes of poets, artists and architects

Elle Decor

11 March 2026

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Mumbai in motion

OPEN

12 March 2026

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The Parsis who taught Bombay how to host the world

Condé Nast Traveller

21 March 2026

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Artist Chittaprosad’s 1950s depiction of a labour camp speaks to Mumbai’s fast-changing present

Scroll

22 March 2026

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Visit 'Bombay Framed' at Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai; A Free Exhibition Celebrating City's Ever-Evolving Story

Free Press Journal

3 April 2026

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How Bombay went from a fort city to a bustling metropolis

BBC

4 April 2026

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Once upon a time, when Bombay was dismissed as a swamp that wasn't worth building on

Condé Nast Traveller

6 April 2026

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A new exhibition at DAG offers a look at 19th-century Mumbai before the chaos took over

Architectural Digest

9 April 2026

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What the city remembers | ‘Bombay Framed: People, Memory, Metropolis’ at DAG Mumbai

The Hindu

11 April 2026

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Khada Parsi in Byculla is an act of colonial defiance. And a son’s tribute to his father

The Print

12 April 2026

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Bombay Framed

People, Memory, Metropolis

all artworks

press

Exhibition and Events

exhibition video