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William Hodges (1744-97) was a pioneer in more ways than one. He was the first British landscape painter to visit India, and to portray scenery across the whole breadth of the Gangetic plain. As a writer, he gave the first detailed descriptions of numerous historic Indian buildings, and he theorised about the origins and evolution of Indian architectural design. His art illustrates his exploration into terrain which—in its breadth and scope—was at the time almost as unfamiliar to Indian as to Western eyes.

Calcutta, flourishing with commerce and maritime trade during the nineteenth century, was regarded as the ‘second city’ of the British Empire. People thronged there in large numbers to make a livelihood, or in holy pilgrimage, seeking blessings at the Kali temple at Kalighat that had been re-built in 1809. Annada Prasad Bagchi Bamapada Banerjee B. C. Law C. W. Lawrie Kshetradas Chitrakar Panchanan Karmakar Madhav Chandra Das Ramadhan Swarnakar Ganganarayan Ghosh Nritya Lal Datta Press Kristohurry Das Chorebagan Art Studio Kansaripara Art Studio Calcutta Jubilee Art Studio Bat-tala

In the articulation of twentieth century art, where does one place Altaf Mohamedi? That question has probably troubled more curators than we realise. Altaf, who studied art in London before returning to Bombay (now Mumbai) was following in the footsteps of his elder sister and artist Nasreen Mohamedi, but that is where all similarities ended. Where Nasreen was an abstract, sparse artist who created a distinctive language using, for most part, rigid, inflexible lines that nevertheless sang on the paper over which they were made, Altaf’s work was intensely political and social.

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.

Most shows at DAG take time to develop because of the quality of research and scholarship they require to mount, but even by our own exacting standards, Continuum has taken longer than most. This, a retrospective in a sense of the six artists who formed the Progressive Artists’ Group, is seminal because it is for the first time since 1950 that the six artists forming the core group have been brought together in an exhibition of their works. The Progressives have become the rallying point for the modern movement in Indian art, and are considered among the most important artists of the last and current century. Of these, M. F. Husain, F. N. Souza and S. H. Raza dominate the market. Alongside, works by their contemporaries K. H. Ara, H. A. Gade and S. K. Bakre, who have largely been seen to have underperformed in comparison, will help re-draw such distinctions and place them on the same platform as their better-known peers. It will re-define their historical importance and gain them the recognition that is their due. Maqbool Fida Husain M.F.Husain Hari Ambadas Gade Syed Haider Raza Krishnaji Howlaji Ara Sadanandji k. Bakre Francis Newton Souza

DAG invited leading historians of Delhi, Swapna Liddle and Rana Safvi, to explore our archives collection. The items they found there include numerous photographs of the three durbars, taken by prominent photographers of the day. They also include many other objects relating to the durbars, from portraits and medals, to maps and official guidebooks, and to tickets and programmes. Historians in the past have analysed the ideology of the Delhi durbars, but never before has such a collection of the material culture of these events been brought together for display.

Stepping up its efforts to familiarise viewers with the extensive range of Indian modern art, DAG occupied an extensive booth at the India Art Fair 2014, where over 300 paintings and sculptures were displayed, featuring about 125 artists. The specially designed booth was the centre of attraction at the fair and the most prominent destination for art lovers wanting to understand the development of Indian art from the point of its history, chronology, movements, periods, regions, or genres. It was an art history lesson brought to life and was thronged by visitors. Special talks were organised at the booth. A 332-page catalogue was specially published for the fair and remains a compendium of India’s greatest artists ever. A. A. Almelkar A. A. Raiba A. D. Tavaria A. M. Davierwalla Abalall Rahiman Abanindranath Tagore Akbar Padamsee Altaf Amalnath Chakladhar Ambadas Amitava Aroomoogam Pillay Arpana Caur Avinash Chandra B. C. Law B. Prabha Badri Nath Arya Bal Chhabda Benjamin Hudson Benode Behari Mukherjee Bhupen Khakkar Bijan Choudhary Bikash Bhattacharjee Bimal Dasgupta Bipin Behari Goswami Biren De Bireswar Sen Chintamoni Kar Chittaprosad D. P. Roy Chowdhury Dhanraj Bhagat Dharamanarayan Dasgupta Early Bengal Oil (Anonymous) F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Gaganendranath Tagore Ganesh Haloi Ganesh Pyne George Keyt Gieve Patel Gogi Saroj Pal Gopal Ghose H. A. Gade Haren Das Hemanta Misra Hemendranath Majumdar Henry Singleton Himmat Shah Indra Dugar J. Sultan Ali J. Swaminthan Jacob Epstein Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jogen Chowdhury Jyoti Bhatt K. C. S. Panicker K. G. Subramanyan K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Kulkarni Kalighat Pat Kanwal Krishna Khagen Roy Kisory Roy Krishen Khanna Kshitindranath Majumdar L. Munuswamy L. N. Taskar L. P. Shaw Laxman Pai M. A. R. Chughtai M. F. Husain M. F. Pithawalla M. V. Dhurandhar Manjit Bawa Manu Parekh Meera Mukherjee Mohan Samant N. R. Sardesai N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Nemai Ghosh Nikhil Biswas P. Chander Sheker P. Khemraj P. T. Reddy P. V. Janakiram Paritosh Sen Pestonji E. Bomanji Portrait (Anonymous) Prabhakar Barwe Prodosh Das Gupta Prokash Karmakar Prosanto Roy R. Vijaivargiya Rabin Mondal Rabindranath Tagore Radha Charan Bagchi Raghav Kaneria Raja Ravi Varma Ram Kumar Ramendranath Chakravorty Rameshwar Broota Ramkinkar Baij Ravi Varma School (Anonymous) S. Dhanapal S. G. Thakur Singh S. H. Raza S. L. Haldankar S.K. Bakre Sailoz Mukherjea Sankho Choudhuri Satish Gujral Shiavax Chavda Shyamal Dutta Ray Sohan Qadri Somnath Hore Suhas Roy Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Thomas Daniell Tyeb Mehta V. Nageshkar V. S. Gaitonde Ved Nayar

One of India’s most important artists, Chittaprosad recorded pivotal political and social movements in the country, such as the Great Bengal Famine of 1943-44 and its fallout, in heart-wrenching sketches and drawings, alongside protests against colonialism, economic exploitation, urban poverty and depravity, just as beautifully as the many drawings, linocuts and scraper board illustrations he made for children, recording a beatific phase of plenitude and family values, and involving himself with marionettes for their entertainment.

This is the first-ever retrospective of the Indian modern artist Avinash Chandra who lived most of his life in the West, in London and New York. The artist, who had trained in New Delhi, left soon after for London, and most of his practice was limited to London and New York, the two cities he called his home till his unfortunately early death in 1991. In the roughly three-and-a-half decades of his career, Avinash’s work changed amazingly, reflecting his environment and milieu as he grew and adapted to cities vastly different from their Indian counterparts, with their own sub-cultures. That this happily coincided with a discovery of India, however superfluously, as a land of spirituality and sexuality, seemed to serve him well as his muse.

A print is an original work of art created and printed by hand by an artist or a professional printing assistant from a ‘matrix’—a plate, block of stone, wood or stencil. The image is created on the matrix and the artist takes a limited number of impressions or prints off it. These impressions are numbered and signed by the artist and belong to a limited edition, and this makes the print an original work of art and not a reproduction. Printmaking consists of a wide range of processes: relief printmaking which consists of techniques like engraving, woodcut and linocut; planographic processes such as lithography and oleography, intaglio processes such as drypoint, etching, aquatint, mezzotint, photo processes and collography; and serigraphy, where the image is printed through a silk screen on to the paper. A P Bagchi A Ramachandran Abanindranath Tagore Ajit Dubey Akhilesh verma Akkitham Naryanan Amitabh Banerjee Amitava Anonymous Print Anupam Sud Arun Bose B P Banerjee Basudev Roy Bengal Lithograph Bengal Oleographs Bengal Woodcut Benod Behari Mukherjee Bhupen Khakhar Bijan Choudhury Chittaprosad Daniell William Devraj Dakoji Devyani Krishna Francis N Souza F. B Solvyns Ganesh Haloi Gulam Sheikh Haren Das Himmat Shah Indu Rakshit Indumati Roop Krishna Jagdish Dey Jagmohan Chopra Jai Zahrotia Jamini Roy Jyoti Bhatt K Laxma Goud K V Haridasan Krishna Ahuja Krishna Reddy Lalu Prasad Shaw M F Husain M. V Dhurandhar Madhvi Parekh Maniklal Banerjee Manu Parekh Moti Zahrotia Mrinalini Mukherjee Mukul Dey Nagji Patel Nalini Malani Nandalal Bose Navjot Paneer Selvam Partha Pratim Deb Portrait Punjab Litho Qamrool Hassan R B Bhaskaran Rabin Mondal Radha Charan Bagchi Ram Kumar Ramendranath Chakravorthy Ramkinkar Baij Rani Dey Ravi Varma Press Ravi Varma Print Rini Dhumal Sakti Burman Sanat Kar Satish Gujral Shobha Broota Shyamal Dutta Ray Somnath Hore Sudhir Khastgir Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Suren Gangooly Sushanta Guha Sushil Sen Suvaprasanna Tapan Bhowmik Tarak Basu Thoman Daniell V Vishwanadhan Various Litho and Olio Vijay Bagodi Vinayak Masoji Vivan Sundaram Walter D’Souza Yogesh Rawal Zainul Abedin

The art of the twentieth century may be too recent for us to judge it from the viewpoint of longevity, but if the past is any criterion, art is set to outlive us by far—a reason why its documentation is one of the more important tasks before us. This is where the Manifestations series is so important. It encourages discussion and debates around the selection of unique works by seventy-five acknowledged artists spanning a century (or more) of Indian modernism across a range of variously permutable combinations: periods, movements, mediums, materials, regions.  Raiba Ambadas Arpana Caur Arun Bose Asit Kumar Haldar Avinash Chandra Bal Chhabda Bikash Bhattacharjee Bimal Dasgupta Biren De Bireswar Sen C. Douglas Chittaprosad Devayani Krishna Dhanraj Bhagat Dharamnarayan Dasgupta Early Bengal (Anonymous) F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Ganesh Pyne Gogi Saroj Pal Himmat Shah Indra Dugar J. C. Seal J. Sultan Ali J. Swaminathan Gaganendranath Tagore Raja Ravi Varma Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jyoti Bhatt K. Adimoolam K. C. S. Paniker K. G. Subramanyan K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Radhakrishnan Kalighat Pat (Anonymous) Khagen Roy Krishen Khanna L. Munuswamy Laxman Pai Laxman Shrestha M. F. Husain M. Senathipathi M. V. Dhurandhar N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Navjot Nemai Ghosh Nikhil Biswas P. Khemraj P. T. Reddy Paritosh Sen Partha Pratim Deb Prokash Karmakar Prosanto Roy Rabin Mondal Rabindranath Tagore Radha Charan Bagchi Ram Kumar Ranbir S. Kaleka Robert Ker Porter S. H. Raza Sakti Burman Satish Gujral Shanti Dave Shyamal Dutta Ray Gopal Ghose Sohan Qadri Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Thota Vaikuntam Ved Nayar

For Shanti Dave, creativity is a consistent and persistent exploration of the word or akshara—a term defined in the Natyashastra as a stroke in musical notes—which he perceives as the source of all creation. 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.