Search results for: 'Imagination to Imp'

A printmaking workshop with artist Rahee Punyashloka of @artedkar, drawing from his own practice to visualise the absent protagonists of the freedom movement.

A khyal performance by Ranjani Ramachandran, drawing from the repertoire of the Gwalior and Jaipur gharanas, that will focus on her interpretive style and the legacy of women performers in post-independence India. Introduced by Lakshmi Subramanian, a historian of music and trade.

The exhibition brings together important works of art spanning a wide range of genres, forms, periods and styles. They are grouped by genre and each thematic arrangement features a select collection of artworks that are milestones in Indian modernism, as well as in the development of the artistic language of several of the participating artists. A. A. Raiba Abalall Rahiman Akbar Padamsee Ambadas Amitava Avinash Chandra B. C. Sanyal B. N. Arya Baburao Painter Benode Behari Mukherjee Bikash Bhattacharjee Bipin Behari Goswami Biren De Chittaprosad Devyani Krishna Dharamnarayan Dasgupta Early Bengal (Anonymous) F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Ganesh Haloi Ganesh Pyne George Keyt Gieve Patel Gogi Saroj Pal Gopal Ghose H. A. Gade Hemanta Misra Himmat Shah Indra Dugar Indu Rakshit J. P. Gangooly J. Sultan Ali Jamini Roy Jeram Patel K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud Kshitindranath Majumdar Laxman Pai M. F. Husain M. F. Pithawalla M. V. Dhurandhar Manu Parekh Mohan Samant N. R. Sardesai Nandalal Bose Nikhil Biswas P. Khemraj P. S. Chander Sheker P. T. Reddy P. V. Janakiram Paritosh Sen Pestonji E. Bomanji Prabhakar Barwe Prodosh Das Gupta Prokash Karmakar Rabin Mondal Rabindranath Tagore Radha Charan Bagchi Ram Kumar Ravi Varma School (Anonymous) S. Dhanapal S. G. Thakur Singh S. H. Raza S. K. Bakre Satish Gujral Shanti Dave Shiavax Chavda Shyamal Dutta Ray Sohan Qadri Sunil Das Surendran Nair Tyeb Mehta V. Nageshkar Vivan Sundaram

Much of Indian modernism is enriched by the work that some of its best known artists produced after they had left the country, choosing as home another land. F. N. Souza was among the first to leave, in 1949, to head for London, where a successful practice catapulted him to the top of Britain’s artists. He was followed, in 1950, by S. H. Raza, who settled in Paris, winning the coveted critics’ award (Prix de la critique) in 1956, while others such as Krishna Reddy (Paris and New York), S. K. Bakre (London), Sakti Burman (Paris), Avinash Chandra (London and New York), Mohan Samant (New York), Natvar Bhavsar (New York), V. Viswanadhan (Paris), Sohan Qadri (Copenhagen), Rajendra Dhawan (Paris), Eric Bowen (Oslo), Ambadas (Oslo), and Zarina Hashmi (New York), followed in the 1950s-70s. These fourteen artists, with their diverse styles and concerns in art making, are masters lauded for the sheer range of responses to their environment that their work has registered. However, the question this exhibition forefronts, as its curator Kishore Singh asks, is: ‘Does the artist’s ethnic identity mean art too has an ethnic identity?’ Ambadas Avinash Chandra Eric Bowen F. N. Souza Krishna Reddy Mohan Samant Natvar Bhavsar Rajendra Dhawan S. H. Raza S. K. Bakre Sakti Burman Sohan Qadri V. Viswanadhan Zarina Hashmi

One of the most important ways in which a work of art is authenticated is by checking its provenance. What does provenance mean and how does it affect the identity of an artwork itself? The concept has evolved historically over the years; below, we try to highlight some of the important aspects of this debate in our recurring series, Argot, that seeks to demystify some of the major ideas from the world of art.

By the end of the century, however, the scene was changing, and infrastructure—following the economic reforms in 1991—began to improve, creating an interest in collecting art. Twentieth century Indian modern art has since been at the forefront of collecting and investing in Indian art, and DAG, which has the largest private collection of Indian art has a marked focus on this period of Indian art. Ambadas F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh George Keyt Jamini Roy K. K. Hebbar Kanwal Krishna Laxman Pai M. F. Husain M. F. Pithawalla M. V. Dhurandhar Madhvi Parekh Nandalal Bose Nemai Ghosh Prokash Karmakar Rabin Mondal

The twentieth century was marked by two important decades—the 1910s, when the Bengal School saw the establishment of a revivalist practice that came to signify Indian modern art in general; and the 1950s, when a newly independent nation put its colonised past behind it and embraced a triumphant modernism. A. A. RAIBA ADI DAVIERWALLA AVINASH CHANDRA BABURAO SADWELKAR BADRI NARAYAN BIREN DE CHITTAPROSAD D. P. ROY CHOWDHURY DEVYANI KRISHNA DHANRAJ BHAGAT G. R. SANTOSH GANESH PYNE HAREN DAS Indra Dugar J. SULTAN ALI JYOTI BHATT K C S PANIKER K S Kulkarni K. G. SUBRAMANYAN K. K. HEBBAR KANWAL KRISHNA KISORY ROY KRISHEN KHANNA KRISHNA REDDY Laxman Pai M. F. HUSAIN MOHAN SAMANT NANDALAL BOSE NIKHIL BISWAS P. T. REDDY PARITOSH SEN S. H. RAZA S. K. BAKRE SAKTI BURMAN SHANTI DAVE SUNIL DAS SUNIL MADHAV SEN VISHWANATH NAGESHKAR

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.

Chittaprosad (1915 – 1978) was an artist of the people. A firm believer in the power of political art to bring tangible change in society, he is remembered for political cartoons and caricatures lampooning the ruling elite while championing the cause of the working class.

He was also a dedicated journalist working for the Communist Party of India (CPI) and was sent by the party to document the effects of the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 in Bengal’s villages and towns. He would come back with harrowing stories and sketches of hunger and death and publish them in the CPI’s journal People’s War, something that would prove to be extremely important in the face of British censorship on news about the famine.

Post-Independence, Chittaprosad distanced himself from the CPI due to ideological differences and moved to the outskirts of Bombay. He continued registering protest through his art but focussed increasingly on art for children. He setup a puppet studio, Khela-ghar and created beautiful retellings of epics and folk tales in print.

What is the role of collectors and collections or archives in the world of art today? Does it simply allude to practices of producing a consumable past today or does it also aspire to question the ways in which history has been shaped by powerful interventions in the form of artworks, performances and installations?  In this series of conversations, we wanted to explore the idea of collecting recent or contemporary art—and how it inevitably takes us back to the moderns who influenced such practices heavily.