Search results for: 'Light and sh'

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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Nine artists find special mention in India as ‘art treasures, having regard to their artistic and aesthetic value’, a directive by the Archaeological Survey of India in the 1970s. Spanning a period of one hundred years of art practice, these artists represent a diversity of art traditions and movements but are unified by one common thread: a return to Indian roots through context, theme, subject, and an engagement with identity.

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Poet, novelist, musician, playwright, and Asia’s first Nobel Prize awardee—which he won for literature in 1913—Rabindranath Tagore was born on 7 May 1861, and took to painting and drawing only in his sixties.

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Born in Maharashtra, B. Vithal took a diploma in sculptural art from Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay. Taking to art with natural ease, he began drawing as early as five years of age, making Ganesha and other popular Hindu deities on his slate using chalk. The inspiration sustained through his entire life, and his work was mainly inspired by Hindu mythology, philosophy, and ancient Indian art.  Learn More

Born into a family of painters in Kolhapur, Vasant Anant Mali studied art professionally at Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in the 1920s. It was here that he grasped the nuances of painting through academic realism. Working mostly in the medium of watercolour and oil, Mali keenly observed how some of his teachers, including Walter Langhammer, worked with various tools and applied bold brushstrokes with knife. Mali’s work had a forcefulness, a depth that was unique and could be seen, particularly, in portraits done by him. Learn More

Born in Purulia in West Bengal, Sunil Madhav Sen was a self-taught artist. Though he learned drawing as a child from a local teacher, he studied law and the liberal arts at Calcutta University and worked for the government. He pursued his passion for art privately alongside his legal practise, visiting the studios of Abanindranath Tagore, Atul Bose, J. P. Gangooly, and Satish Sinha. He also apprenticed for two years under Hemendranath Mazumdar, honing his skills in portrait painting. Learn More

Sudhir Ranjan Khastgir was born on 24 September 1907 in Chittagong in present-day Bangladesh, and studied at Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, under Nandalal Bose. Like his classmate, Ramkinkar Baij, he took up sculpture as a subject, continuing its pursuit in Lucknow under Hiranmoy Roychaudhuri in 1932, and under Ganpath Kashinath Mahatre, in Bombay, in 1933. The same year, he joined Scindia School, Gwalior, as a teacher and, later, Doon School in Dehradun. Learn More

The most definitive painter of the portraits of the Sikh gurus, Sobha Singh was born on 29 November 1901 at Gurdaspur in the Punjab. Interested in the arts since childhood, he learnt to draw and sculpt on his own, the early death of his parents depriving him of formal training in art. He joined the British Indian army as a draughtsman and continued to learn from studying the works of English and European artists. Learn More

Renowned for his versatility as painter, sculptor, muralist, and architect, Satish Gujral was born in Jhelum in pre-Partition Punjab on 25 December 1925. His parents nurtured his inclination towards the creative arts while he was recovering from an accident as a child that cost him his hearing and speech. He trained at Mayo School of Art, Lahore, and briefly at Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay. He also came in contact with the Progressive Artists’ Group but parted ways to chart his own course in search of an Indian modernism. Learn More

Born in Calcutta, Sakti Burman studied at the city’s Government College of Arts and Crafts, and later at École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Paris. Like most other Indian artists who studied or lived in the French capital, Paris-based Burman’s works blend European and Indian imagery. Learn More

Born in 1910 in Pabna, in present-day Bangladesh, Radha Charan Bagchi graduated from College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta, in traditional Indian art, oil painting, and Western academism. Abanindranath Tagore, Mukul Dey and other Bengal masters were major influences but Bagchi evolved his own artistic style. In 1951, he joined Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan, as teacher, officiating twice as its principal in subsequent years. Learn More

Prokash Karmakar learnt painting at his father, artist-teacher Prahlad Karmakar’s atelier, till the socio-political turmoil of the 1940s and his father’s early death put an end to it. After his matriculation, Karmakar joined Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta, but quit soon thereafter for reasons of poverty. In between, he designed book covers and worked as an illustrator for his livelihood; he even joined the army but absconded after two years, driven by his desire to paint. Learn More