Search results for: 'DELHI DURBAR EMPIRE DISPLAY AND THE POSSESSION OF HISTORY'

This exhibition looks at landscape painting in India over a period of two hundred years, from 1780 to 1980. We start with English artists who travelled in India from the late eighteenth century onwards, to rediscover what they were looking for, and how they saw what they found. The introduction of new materials, and the teaching of new methods in the art schools from the middle of the 19th century, encouraged some Indian artists to adopt similar academic style approaches. In the twentieth century, a reaction set in, as Indian artists sought new modes of expression. As if reclaiming their patrimony and the right to represent it, they invented a glorious array of new landscape styles.

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Continuing its theme of introducing Indian abstractionists at Art Dubai, DAG handpicked works by eight eminent abstract artists and juxtaposed them to bring into focus how brushwork and colour are imbued with emotion and can compel viewers to spend hours studying such works. The artists presented by DAG at Art Dubai 2018—Ambadas, Sohan Qadri, Natvar Bhavsar, Avinash Chandra, Rajendra Dhawan, Shanti Dave, Ram Kumar and S. H. Raza—worked in different styles but their use of vivid colours highlighted this somewhat neglected genre of art in India that has begun to enjoy a premium in recent years. These artists had their studios in different parts of the world—Copenhagen, Oslo, New York, Paris, London, New Delhi—but had one thing in common: they were all of Indian origin and had trained and begun their careers in India. AMBADAS SOHAN QADRI NATVAR BHAVSAR AVINASH CHANDRA SHANTI DAVE G. R. SANTOSH J. SWAMINATHAN RAM KUMAR JERAM PATEL RAJENDRA DHAWAN K. V. HARIDASAN

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DAG debuted at the prestigious London fair in its seventh edition held in 2016. The gallery exhibited a delectable range by modern Indian masters such as Hemen Mazumdar, Rabindranath Tagore, F. N. Souza, G. R. Santosh and Avinash Chandra. Works on display included expressionist paintings by Rabindranath Tagore, metal sculptures by S. K. Bakre, erotica-inspired art by Avinash Chandra and Hemen Mazumdar, and tantric meditations of S. H. Raza and G. R. Santosh. The museum-quality show was executed along with an event-specific publication. Avinash Chandra Bikash Bhattacharjee Dhanraj Bhagat F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Hemendranath Mazumdar Kshitindranath Majumdar M. F. Husain Rabindranath Tagore Radha Charan Bagchi Ramkinkar Baij S. K. Bakre S. H. Raza F. N. Souza George Keyt Jehangir Sabavala K. K. Hebbar Krishen Khanna Natvar Bhavsar Ranbir Kaleka Rameshwar Broota Krishen Khanna Ram Kumar Tyeb Mehta Rabin Mondal Jamini Roy

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Given Singapore’s sizeable Indian population and its position as a leading financial centre, DAG’s debut at Art Stage Singapore was an obvious corollary. Indian artists are avidly collected in this city-state but DAG’s attempt, as always, was to introduce the masters to visitors at the fair. While keeping in mind the best modernists, it also curated a selection most likely to appeal to Eastern sensibilities—thereby displaying its range and the diversity of Indian art. Akbar Padamsee Ambadas Avinash Chandra B. Prabha Bikash Bhattacharjee Dhanraj Bhagat F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Gogi Saroj Pal Himmat Shah J. Sultan Ali Jeram Patel K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar Laxman Pai M. F. Husain N. S. Bendre P. T. Reddy Paramjit Singh Prokash Karmakar Rabin Mondal Ram Kumar S. Dhanapal S. H. Raza Sakti Burman Sohan Qadri Sunil Das

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The wash technique has come to be associated in India with the art of the Bengal School, but the story of its origins in India takes us back to an era of rich cultural exchanges. In the early twentieth century artists like Abanindranath Tagore were trying to imagine a pan-Asian cultural identity, and they turned for inspiration to traditions from across Persia to Japan. Rabindranath Tagore's friendship with Okakura Kakuzō occasioned the arrival of several Japanese artists in Kolkata, such as Yokoyama Taikan, Hishida Shunsō and Katsuta Shōkin. While the latter found inspiration in the Hindu epics, artists in Bengal adapted techniques that were used by the Japanese, such as the wash technique or the subtle use of ink and brush. Since then, the wash technique has been interpreted widely by individual artists, offering an ethereal quality of light to their works, or, in some cases, like for Gaganendranath Tagore and Prosanto Roy, new possibilities of painting in various shades of darkness.

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What do you make of a work of art? What was the artist attempting to communicate? These video shorts offer brief overviews on artists and their work in the way of expert opinions by scholars, curators art writers—and by the artists themselves. Learn More

This exhibition is significant as it marks one of the largest-ever shows of the Progressives and their associate members. It also celebrates the genesis of the Progressive Artists’ Group in Bombay in 1947 and its continued link with the city. Akbar Padamsee Bal Chhabda F. N. Souza H. A. Gade K.H. Ara Krishen Khanna M. F. Husain Mohan Samant Ram Kumar S. H. Raza S. K. Bakre Tyeb Mehta V. S. Gaitonde

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By the end of the century, however, the scene was changing, and infrastructure—following the economic reforms in 1991—began to improve, creating an interest in collecting art. Twentieth century Indian modern art has since been at the forefront of collecting and investing in Indian art, and DAG, which has the largest private collection of Indian art has a marked focus on this period of Indian art. Ambadas F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh George Keyt Jamini Roy K. K. Hebbar Kanwal Krishna Laxman Pai M. F. Husain M. F. Pithawalla M. V. Dhurandhar Madhvi Parekh Nandalal Bose Nemai Ghosh Prokash Karmakar Rabin Mondal

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Prabhakar Barwe (1936-95) could well have ended up a theoretician whose book 'Kora Canvas' (Blank Canvas) was a manifesto that established the multi-dimensional relationship between an artist, the object on which he paints, and his subjects. That he was not just an intellectual scholar but an artist whose work speaks for him, is evident through a range of works in which Barwe dissects our understanding of the world and how we view it. Taking commonplace objects and our perception of their existence in the space they occupy, he shifts the dialogue to a point of discomfiture that makes us question our understanding of them. Using scale, discordant juxtapositions, and displacements, he reimagines the everyday in a manner that is thought-provoking, even provocative, as alternate realities—whether perceived or imagined.

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Shown at the Shanghai Biennale, exhibited in New York, widely admired for his consistency throughout his career, Rabin Mondal’s excoriating paintings are a savage indictment of social and political ills. A reticent, reserved artist, Mondal’s works offer a scathing commentary on the pursuit and abuse of power. A primal, primordial figuration describes his work in which people in positions of authority are rendered vulnerable because of the very power they aspire to. Their contorted features and clawed hands and feet represent their venality. Strong outlines, naked brushstrokes and potent use of green and red characterise most his work.

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Jamini Roy’s was an art of quiet resistance that assimilated so seamlessly into the folk and craft traditions of Bengal that it did not cause any discernible ripples among the prevalent artistic mood. All around him, art was being nurtured, questioned, uprooted—it was, after all, a period when nationalist feelings ran high and a search for an indigenous lexicon was paramount—but Jaminida’s ability to look to tradition for a modern approach, though revolutionary, was instinctively natural and organic. It was art that everyone understood and wanted to take home. No wonder Jamini babu became a household name in his native Calcutta and went on to be honoured as one of the pre-eminent National Treasure artists of the country whose art has the greatest acceptance of any known Indian modernist.

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