Search results for: 'Superfluous Things, Material Culture and Social Status in Early Modern China'

Kripal Singh Shekhawat of Jaipur worked his entire life to bridge the gap between the vernacular and the contemporary, combining what was considered the craft of a kumhar—potter—with the fine art of miniature painting. He paved a new path for a pioneering social and aesthetic mode of life in twentieth century India.

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A student of K. C. S. Paniker—the influential artist-teacher and founding father of the Madras Art Movement—M. Senathipathi is known for his richly textured works drawn from mythology and contextualised in contemporary social issues. Learn More

A guided walk of the first free circulating public library of India—Uttarpara Public Library—with researcher Sarbajit Mitra, traversing the history of regional literary cultures, and sifting through their vast archive to delve into the vibrant world of illustrated periodicals in colonial Bengal, followed by a poetry reading by Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee. 

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A guided walk of the first free circulating public library of India—Uttarpara Public Library—with researcher Sarbajit Mitra, traversing the history of regional literary cultures, and sifting through their vast archive to delve into the vibrant world of illustrated periodicals in colonial Bengal, followed by a poetry reading by Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee. 

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An exhibition and workshop drawing from Cartoon Dol’s archives of Bengal’s caricature art, on confronting social-political issues through humour and satire, with a closing performance by Chandrabindoo. 

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In a career spanning four decades, Amitava’s location as an artist has determined the authority that he brings to his practice. As an artist studying and working in the 1960s, Amitava Das experienced a decade of fragmented locii. The ’60s, the period of his education at the College of Art, was the decade of wars, fiscal difficulty and an uncertain polity in the wake of the death of Jawaharlal Nehru. Further, as a second generation pravasi (non-residing Indian) Bengali, the roiling political violence of West Bengal’s Naxal movement came to him through the filter of poetry, film and art—much as he would have received the existential writing of Camus, Genet and Rilke. Through the 1960s and ’70s, small groups of artists and filmmakers in different pockets in India had a heightened response: the state of the nation found an uncanny echo in the language of modernism, of the artist’s isolation and purity even within a state of uncertainty.

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In February, Paris' Centre Pompidou--a premier centre for modern art since its construction in 1977--mounted an extensive solo show looking back at S. H. Raza’s career in painting. It represents a historic moment for Indian modern art’s international story as it unfolded over the twentieth century, and also marked Raza's own symbolic return to the place where he stayed for most of his working life. The fertile post-independent period saw cross-cultural connections being forged by Indian artists in Europe and America on their own terms and this show is a testament to Raza’s evolving encounters with land and mythology. The curators, Catherine David and Diane Toubert, spoke to DAG highlighting some of the takeaways from this major retrospective.

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This Untitled painting, created in the early-to-mid-1970s, reflects Shanti Dave's fervent experimentation during a prolific period marked by international recognition in mural making and exhibitions. Drawing inspiration from childhood memories of Badapura and nearby archaeological ruins, the abstract composition blends colour pigments, beeswax, and oil solutions in a dynamic interplay. Employing a reverse image technique with molten wax, the painting challenges perceptions and invites contemplation on the nature of truth. Noted fashion designer and art-collector Tarun Tahiliani explains the nuances of Shanti Dave’s work in a film specially created on the painting.

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How did the idea of Indian art come to be constructed over the last century and more? The painstaking work of collectors and curators went a long way towards establishing the history of art in India. In this article we highlight some of the most significant collectors of art from South Asia over the course of the twentieth century. Usually starting as personal collections, most of them would eventually donate their works to museums in India or abroad, allowing these rare works to be seen regularly by new generations of art enthusiasts across the world. Their collections, curated exhibitions and publications fashioned the canons of Indian modern and pre-modern art

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The mid-twentieth century saw a churn in the practice of art in India with a number of artists beginning to explore a genre that had swept the West with its absence of figuration in favour of abstraction. The non-representational began to gain traction as artists found within it a way to express themselves purely through colour as a potent tool to communicate emotions. Abstraction emphasised the relationship between originality and expression in ways that were complex, leading one to debate about the eventual goal of art. Ambadas, Krishna Reddy, Sohan Qadri, Zarina Hashmi, Rajendra Dhawan

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The series of aquatint prints known as Oriental Scenery represent the single largest and most impressive project by English artists to depict Indian architecture and landscape. Thomas Daniell (1749-1840) and his nephew William Daniell (1769-1837) travelled extensively in India between 1786 and 1793. On their return to Britain they produced many paintings, drawings and prints based on the sketches they had made while travelling. The aquatints were issued in pairs between March 1795 and December 1808. Subscribers who purchased all of them could assemble them into six volumes, each with 24 prints, making up a total of 144 – of which half are shown here.

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For a socially responsive artist like Nataraj Sharma, the frenzied pace of change in contemporary times coupled with his upbringing in vastly different cultural milieus of India, Egypt, England, and Zambia, has proved to be the proverbial grist for his art mill. Learn More