Search results for: 'An exhibition of Souza s works is organised by Menon at India House'

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In the galaxy of modern masters, one name that is synonymous with twentieth century Indian art, is M. F. Husain’s. Born in Pandharpur, Maharashtra, on 17 September 1911, Husain came to Bombay in 1937 to become a painter, where he slept on footpaths and painted under streetlights. A self-taught artist, he began his career painting cinema posters and hoardings, and, in 1941, started making toys and furniture designs. Learn More

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Born in Graz, Austria, Walter Langhammer came to India in the 1930s with his wife Käthe Urbäch, escaping Nazi Germany like other refugees. Some media reports suggest that British authorities had arrested the couple on their arrival in India till a friend, noted art critic Rudolf von Leyden, came to their rescue. Learn More

One of the earliest pioneers of European modernism in Indian sculpture, Hiranmoy Roychaudhuri studied under E. B. Havell at the Government School of Art, Calcutta in 1905. He was also one of the earliest Indian artists to go to England to study art; he went to the Royal College of Art, London, in 1910 to train in sculpture. Learn More

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At the turn of the twentieth century, Abanindranath Tagore asked himself if the emerging artists of modern India should continue to paint in the manner of their European colonizers; or was there a new path waiting to be forged? His answers led him to envision a pan-Asian cultural identity, spanning traditions from Persia to Japan, and culminating in a ‘new “Indian” art.’ Regarded as the founder of the Bengal School, Abanindranath left an unparalleled legacy both in terms of his own diverse body of work, and through his pupils, like Nandalal Bose, who shaped the contours of art across the subcontinent in the twentieth century.

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Chittaprosad Bhattacharya (1913-1978) was a versatile artist and a lifelong adherent of the socialistic worldview. In 1943, he traveled across the famine-stricken villages of Bengal and produced realistic sketches of human suffering that were regularly published in the pages of the Communist Party journal 'People’s war'. These sketches were later compiled and published as a booklet under the title 'Hungry Bengal'. Fascinated by his artistic skills, the General Secretary of Communist Party of India, Puran Chand Joshi took Chittaprosad to the Party’s headquarters in Bombay (now Mumbai). 

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An influential artist who is known for her richly detailed oils and watercolours, Arpita Singh was born in Calcutta in 1937. She studied art at Delhi Polytechnic (now College of Art) from 1954-59, and then joined the Government of India’s cottage industries restoration programme in 1959, which allowed her to meet weavers and artisans. Learn More

Among the most accomplished watercolourists of modern India, Shyamal Dutta Ray was born in Ranchi, then in Bihar, and studied at Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta, from 1950-55. He was a founding member of Society of Contemporary Artists in 1959, and of Painters 80, founded in 1968. Learn More

Born in Calcutta on 20 October 1947, Shuvaprasanna is a quintessential painter of the eastern metropolis that he unabashedly loves. He graduated from Indian College of Art, Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta, in 1969. An active member of Calcutta Painters group, urban themes are a constant in his work. Beset by problems and politics, but possessing great potential, Kolkata has remained his abiding inspiration as he absorbs and responds to its upheavals, the tumult of its masses, and its frequent political turbulence. Learn More