Search results for: 'Will King Darbar will be held in India'

Perhaps the least celebrated of the nine National Treasure artists of India, Sailoz Mookherjea was one of the earliest modern painters of the country, and also one of the earliest to study in Paris, in 1937.

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Born in Dacca (now Dhaka) in present-day Bangladesh, Prodosh Das Gupta studied sculpture under Hiranmoy Roy Chowdhary at the Lucknow School of Arts and Crafts (1932-33), and under D. P. Roy Chowdhury at Government School of Art and Craft, Madras (1933-37). Over the next two years, he studied bronze casting at LCC Central School, London, and sculpture at Royal Academy of Arts, London, and Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris. He returned to India in 1940 and set up his studio in Calcutta. He subsequently taught at M. S. University, Baroda, and at Calcutta’s Government College of Arts and Crafts. Learn More

The search for abstraction in Indian art in the early years of Independence was born out of a desire among artists to attain an independent idiom of modernism. Rooted in the country’s philosophical and religious aesthetic, Prabhakar Kolte is among the leading practitioners engaged in this quest. A master of poetic and metaphysical abstractionism, Kolte received a diploma in painting from Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in 1968. Initially, he freelanced as an illustrator, also working as a designer at Bombay Dyeing. Learn More

An early Indian abstractionist who forged his own vocabulary, distinct from the dominant forces that gripped India’s art community in the early years of Independence, Piraji Sagara came to be known for his collages made of wood relief amalgamated with abstract paintings. Learn More

Born in Gujarat to a family of farmers, Nagji Patel grew up making clay toys as part of playing with village children. He joined the painting course at Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, Baroda, but eventually switched to sculpture, which he found less daunting than painting. He obtained an M.F.A. in sculpture in 1964 and in the same year won a travelling scholarship from the Government of India, which allowed him to visit quarries across the country and interact with stone carvers. Learn More

Born in Bombay, Mohan Samant showed early proficiency for both music and art. A lifelong player of sarangi—an Indian bowed, string instrument—Samant chose painting as a career and obtained a diploma from Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in 1952. In the early 1950s, he was influenced by his teacher Shankar Palsikar, a painter of the traditional school, but moved soon towards an expressionistic mode in an attempt to discover his own style, fusing the expressive, the primitive and the abstract in his art. Learn More

Possibly the most popular academic Indian artist after Raja Ravi Varma, M. V. Dhurandhar was born in Kolhapur. An early interest in drawing led his father to admit him to Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, where he received special encouragement from its principal, John Griffiths. Learn More

An important artist of the Madras Group that synthesised modernism by melding Indian traditions with Western modernist techniques under the direction of K. C. S. Paniker, M. Suriyamoorthy’s visual language employed emphatic regional and folk imagery. Learn More

Born in Nashik, Maharashtra, M. S. Joshi studied at Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in the 1930s. Joshi combined his training in academic realism with a sense of vitality, precision and aesthetics to reveal India’s rich cityscapes and landscapes in his watercolour and gouache works. There was immense depth in the rendering of his subjects, which included people, places, architectural elements, all done in a subdued yet textured palette. Learn More

Krishnaji Howlaji Ara, a founder member of the Progressive Artists’ Group, was born in Secunderabad on 16 April 1914, but ran away to Bombay as a child. Much later, his skills as a painter were spotted by Austrian artist and art director of The Times of India, Walter Langhammer, who encouraged him in his artistic pursuit. Learn More

Born in Kerala on 15 February 1924, K. G. Subramanyan was studying economics at the Presidency College, Madras, when he joined India’s struggle for freedom, and was imprisoned and debarred from government colleges. Learn More

K. C. S. Paniker, a towering personality in the world of Indian modern art, is remembered most for spearheading the Madras Art Movement and founding the Cholamandal Artists’ Village on the outskirts of Madras in 1966. Learn More