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This historic exhibition based on the association twenty-seven Indian artists had with art institutions, museums and art movements in Paris throws light on France as a cradle of modernism and what Indian artists gained from this relationship. Akbar Padamsee Amrita Sher-Gil Anjolie Ela Menon Arun Bose Chintamoni Kar Himmat Shah Jehangir Sabavala Jogen Chowdhury K. K. Hebbar Kanwal Krishna Krishna Reddy Laxman Pai Laxman Shrestha Nalini Malani Nasreen Mohamedi Nirode Mazumdar P. Khemraj Paritosh Sen Prodosh Das Gupta Prokash Karmakar Rajendra Dhawan Ram Kumar Sailoz Mukherjea Sakti Burman Sunil Das Syed Haider Raza V. Nageshkar V. Viswanadhan Zarina Hashmi

The exhibition, Indian Divine, begins with the late nineteenth century art on mythological and religious themes from regions as diverse as Bombay and Bengal—these include Western style oil paintings of deities by such well-known artists of the academic realist styles as Raja Ravi Varma and M. V. Dhurandhar, and mythological/ religious episodes and figures featured in the hybrid style, a mix of Western realistic painting and traditional Indian art and concerns—the Early Bengal style, a very popular form, of which the exhibition presents over fifty works. It goes on to document Kalighat paintings on religious and mythological themes from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that were very popular, as well popular bazaar prints on these themes that flooded the markets with the advent of lithography and mechanical printing. 19th-20th century Popular Print Art School Print A. A. Almelkar A. A. Raiba A. P. Bagchi Asit Haldar B. C. Law B. N. Jija Baburao Painter Bat-tala Print (Anonymous) Bikash Bhattacharjee Bipin Behari Goswami Bishnupada Roychowdhury Chittaprosad D. B. Onkar D. D. Burman D. N. Sharma Debabrata Chakraborty Devyani Krishna Dhanraj Bhagat Dhirendra Narayan Dhruva Mistry Dipen Bose Early Bengal Early Bengal (Anonymous) F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Ganesh Pyne Gogi Saroj Pal Haren Das Heramba Kumar Ganguly Indu Rakshit J. Sultan Ali Jamini Roy K. C. Pyne K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Kulkarni Kalighat pat (Anonymous) Kalipada Ghoshal Kamal Chattopadhyay Kanwal Krishna Krishen Khanna Kshitindranath Majumdar Laxman Pai M. F. Husain M. V. Dhurandhar Madhvi Parekh Mukul Dey Nandalal Bose Nihar Ranjan Sengupta P. T. Reddy P. V. Janakiram R. Vijaivargiya Rabin Mondal Radha Charan Bagchi Raja Ravi Varma Ramananda Bandhopadhyay Ramendranath Chakravorty Ranada Charan Ukil Ravi Varma School (Anonymous) Reddappa Naidu Roopkrishna S. Dhanapal S. G. Vasudev Sanat Chatterjee Sanjay Bhattacharya Sarada Charan Ukil Shyamal Dutta Ray Sohan Qadri Sudhanshu Ghosh Sudhir Ranjan Khastagir Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Surendranath Ganguly V. Nageshkar

‘Iconic Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art, Edition 02’, the second iteration of DAG’s annual exhibition that redefines the concept of modernism in the Indian context, will be on view in New Delhi this month. Timed to coincide with the launch of its new gallery in the capital, ‘Iconic Masterpieces’ brings together the finest instances of art created in the country by Western and Asian travelling artists and Indian masters spread a little over two centuries. Selected for their rarity, historicity, and excellence, each work of art in this exhibition marks the zenith in terms of the quality of art created in different periods and styles in the subcontinent.

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

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.

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

Artists have often formulated their theories and observations to analyse and become aware of the cognitive modes of art making, and to associate with broader contemporaneous art movements. These manifestos become a window into an artist’s process. Prabhakar Barwe’s seminal treatise, <i>Kora Canvas</I> (The Blank Canvas, 1989), exemplifies his deep understanding of the fundamental elements of art and keen observations of nature and his surroundings.

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.

The idea of primitivism centres on the wish to identify with, or respond to, elements of a society that are deemed ‘primitive’. In artistic terms, it is about rejecting realism, simplifying technique and reducing the formal means of expression to a ‘primitive’ state. The term itself is borrowed from discussions of Western art, where high-profile examples include the images of Tahiti and its people made in the 1890s by Paul Gauguin, and responses to African sculpture by Pablo Picasso in 1906-09. The second thread of primitivism—the reduction of formal means—is best exemplified by the ‘cut-outs’ made by Henri Matisse in the 1940s.

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.

With the cultural calendar being packed till spring, join us as we travel through some of the most popular ongoing or upcoming art fairs and biennales. Take a close look at artists who bring modernist ideas to the contemporary art context. With some ubiquitous names from the twentieth century art world accompanied by a few of those that have been historically overlooked, discover how ideas around the Modern have evolved through these fairs and biennales, as we focus on notable artists from each art festival and delve into their practice.