Search results for: 'Shifting Visions Teaching Modern Art at the Bombay School'

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.

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N. R. Sardesai was born in 1885 in Ratnagiri, Maharashtra, and completed his early education at the Ratnagiri School of Industry. Here, he studied carpentry and drawing in 1906, before joining Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, for formal training in art. Thereafter, he began work as a drawing teacher in a school in Fort, Bombay. In 1915, he had a short stint as a drawing teacher at his alma mater too. Learn More

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

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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

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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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The exhibition features several works of academic realist portraiture from early 20th century—vivid oil portraits by masters of the form such as Pestonji Bomanji, M. F. Pithawalla, Baburao Painter and L. N. Taskar as well as charcoal sketches by M. V. Dhurandhar, an academic artist of renown of the same period. The selection features Western academic oil-influenced works on mythological themes by the school referred to as Early Bengal and two works painted in a Raja Ravi Varma-derived style—an anonymous work by the Ravi Varma ‘School’ and Aroomoogam Pillay. A. A. Almelkar Abalall Rahiman Abani Sen Akbar Padamsee Ambadas Anonymous (EarlyBengal) Anonymous (Portraiture ) Anupam Sud Aroomoogam Pillay Avinash Chandra Baburao Painter Badri Narayan Bijan Choudhary Bikash Bhattacharjee Biren De Chintamoni Kar Chittaprosad D. P. Roy Chowdhury Devyani Krishna Dharamnarayan Dasgupta F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh G. Ravinder Reddy Ganesh Haloi Gogi Saroj Pal Gopal Ghose H. A. Gade Himmat Shah J. Sultan Ali J. Swaminathan Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jogen Chowdhury Jyoti Bhatt K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Kulkarni K. V. Haridasan Kshitindranath Majumdar L. Munuswamy L. N. Taskar Laxman Pai M. F. Husain M. F. Pithawalla M. V. Dhurandhar Madhvi Parekh Mukul Dey N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Nasreen Mohammedi Nicholas Roerich Nikhil Biswas P. Khemraj P. T. Reddy Paritosh Sen Pestonji E. Bomanji Prosanto Roy Rabin Mondal Ram Kumar Ramkinkar Baij Ravi Varma ‘School’ S. H. Raza S. K. Bakre Sadequain Sailoz Mukherjea Shanti Dave Shyamal Dutta Ray Sohan Qadri Sudhir Patwardhan Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Tarak Garai Ved Nayar Walter Langhammer

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From 1797, when British artist Thomas Daniell painted his masterly landscape of Mahabalipuram, to 2003, the year Rameshwar Broota's painting pitching man against metal resulted in a powerful image, the Indian art world has seen a succession of artists and movements that have enriched its vocabulary in more ways than one. Thomas Daniell Sita Ram Early Bengal School Raja Ravi Varma Edwin Lord Weeks Marius Bauer Ustad Allah Bakhsh Studio of Bourne & Shepherd M. V. Dhurandhar Hemendranath Mazumdar M. A. R. Chughtai Nandalal Bose Jamini Roy Laxman Pai J. Swaminathan Francis Newton Souza J. Sultan Ali Rabin Mondal S. H. Raza K. K. Hebbar Akbar Padamsee Tyeb Mehta K. H. Ara S. K. Bakre Bireswar Sen Nirode Mazumdar Shanti Dave Gulam Rasool Santosh Madhvi Parekh Satish Gujral Bikash Bhattacharjee Maqbool Fida Husain Meera Mukherjee Rameshwar Broota

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A painter with a strikingly elegant bearing, Jehangir Sabavala was born on 23 August 1922 in an affluent Parsi family in Bombay and grew up in an intellectually charged environment. He studied at Elphinstone College, Bombay, before graduating from Sir J. J. School of Art in 1944. Thereafter, he studied at some of the leading art schools of Europe—The Heatherly School of Art, London (1945-47), Académie André Lhote, Paris (1948-51), Académie Julian, Paris (1953-54), and Académie de la Grande Chaumière, Paris (1957). Learn More

Landscape art arrived in India through travelling European artists who brought the aesthetic of painting mountains, rivers and trees against the sky and a distant horizon—nature as a subject in itself —to Indian art, where it had traditionally only formed a backdrop in narrative-driven, figural paintings. The genre remained popular throughout the nineteenth century with a great demand for landscapes of India both in Europe and among the newly anglicised elite in India. Its popularity began to wane with the advent of modernism and a growing emphasis on the human figure, but several Indian artists, a significant name among them Gopal Ghose, continued to practice the form, now absorbing a wide range of new artistic trends and influences. A.A. Almelkar Abanindranath Tagore Ambika Dhurandhar Amitava Anonymous (Company School) Anonymous (Early Bengal) Atul Bose Avinash Chandra B. C. Gue B. N. Arya Bhupen Khakhar Bijan Choudhary Bikash Bhattcharjee Bimal Dasgupta Bireswar Sen Bishnupada Roychowdhury Chittaprosad D. C. Joglekar D. J. Joshi Devraj Dakoji Devyani Krishna Dharamnarayan Dasgupta Dulal Gue E. A. Dadi Edward Cheney F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh G. S. Haldankar Ganesh Haloi Gobardhan Ash Gopal Ghose H. A. Gade Haren Das Hirachand Dugar Indra Dugar J. P. Gangooly Jamini Roy John Deschamps Jyoti Bhatt K H. Ara K. C. S. Panicker K. K. Hebba K. Laxma Gou K. S. Kulkarni Kanwal Krishna Kisory Roy Kripal Singh Shekhawat L. N. Taskar L. P. Shaw Lalit Mohan Sen Laxman Pai M. F. Husain M. V. Dhurandhar Manishi Dey Mukul Dey N. R. Sardesai N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Nikhil Biswas Olinto Ghilardi P. Khemraj Paramjit Singh Pestonji E. Bomanji Prokash Karmakar Prosanto Roy Radha Charan Bagchi Raja Ravi Varma Ram Kumar Ramendranath Chakravorty Ramkinkar Baij Ranen Ayan Dutta Richard Barron Robert Grindlay S. G. Thakur Singh S. K. Bakre S. L. Haldankar Satish Sinha Sudhir Khastgir Sunil Das Thomas Daniell William Carpenter William Hodges

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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

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