Search results for: 'Modern Indian Art'

'Iconic Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art, Edition 2' opened on 11 February, featuring fifty artworks which shaped the trajectory of pre-modern and modern art in the country. As part of the exhibition, William Dalrymple reflects on the painting ‘Panorama of a Small British Station on the Ganges’. Commissioned by Major James Natheniel Rind and painted like a scientific record of a scenario, the composition evokes a transitional phase between an older Mughal ethos and the emerging world of the Company.

Join us for a talk by William Dalrymple on Indian Painting for the East India Company on Wednesday, 5th April 2023, 7pm at DAG, 22A Janpath Road, Windsor Place, New Delhi

The 2015 edition of the India Art fair saw DAG securing a lavish booth across two different spaces spread over 11,000 sq. ft. Likened to a museum (albeit a temporary one), the gallery presented a show of close to one thousand artworks that consisted of both paintings and sculptures. The thematically curated exhibition consisted of nine categories: pre-modern art, the Bengal school, academic realism, the Bombay Progressive artists, high modernism, the Baroda School and Group 1890, the Cholamandal artists, tantra and sculptures. This categorically-placed collection successfully attempted to showcase the dynamic range of Indian art over two hundred years. A special sculpture gallery was set up in a covered courtyard and featured the largest sculpture in India—by K. S. Radhakrishnan. Pre-Moderns Early Bengal Kalighat Pat Company School Popular Prints Birth of Modernism M. R. Achrekar Almelkar Radha Charan Bagchi Richard Barron Pestonji E. Bomanji Atul Bose Sakti Burman William Carpenter Jogen Chowdhury Devraj Dakoji Thomas Daniell John Deschamps M. V. Dhurandhar Indra Dugar J. P. Gangooly Olinto Ghilardi S. L. Haldankar K. K. Hebbar Benjamin Hudson D. C. Joglekar Prahlad C. Karmakar J. A. Lalkaka B. C. Law Hemendranath Mazumdar M. Mali H. Muller Ramaswamy Naidu M. K. Parandekar William Parker Prema Pathare V. B. Pathare M. F. Pithawalla Portraiture (Anonymous) Thomas Prinsep Abalall Rahiman ‘Ravi Varma School’ Kisory Roy Baburao Sadwelkar N. R. Sardesai Bireswar Sen Lalit Mohan Sen Sushil Chandra Sen S. G. Thakar Singh Satish Chandra Sinha L. N. Taskar Raja Ravi Varma Revivalism and Beyond Radha Charan Bagchi Bengal School (Anonymous) Nandalal Bose Ramendranath Chakravorty M. A. R. Chughtai Haren Das Sunayini Devi 438 Mukul Dey Surendranath Ganguly Asit Kumar Haldar Chintamoni Kar Kshitindranath Majumdar Indu Rakshit Prosanto Roy Bisnhupada Roychowdhury D. P. Roy Chowdhury Abanindranath Tagore Sarada Charan Ukil Ramgopal Vijaivargiya Jamini Roy Santiniketan: A New Expressionism Ramkinkar Baij Nandalal Bose Benode Behari Mukherjee The Bengal Famine in Art Gobardhan Ash Ramkinkar Baij Chittaprosad Somnath Hore Bengal Modernist Calcutta Group Gopal Ghose Hemanta Misra Prankrishna Pal Paritosh Sen Sunil Madhav Sen Calcutta Painters Nikhil Biswas Bijan Chowdhury Jogen Chowdhury Prokash Karmakar Rabin Mondal Society of Contemporary Artists Bikash Bhattacharjee Sunil Das Shyamal Dutta Ray Ganesh Haloi Ganesh Pyne Lalu Prasad Shaw Lone Stars: Other Bengal Modernists Amalnath Chakladhar Partha Pratim Deb Nemai Ghosh Somnath Hore Sudhir Ranjan Khastgir Sailoz Mookherjea Gaganendranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore Rise of Modernsim K. H. Ara S. K. Bakre Bal Chhabda H. A. Gade V. S. Gaitonde M. F. Husain Krishen Khanna Ram Kumar Tyeb Mehta Akbar Padamsee S. H. Raza Mohan Samant F. N. Souza A Modern Vernacular Baroda School N. S. Bendre Devraj Dakoji Shanti Dave Bhupen Khakhar Dhruva Mistry Haku Shah Nilima Sheikh K. G. Subramanyan Vivan Sundaram Group 1890 Ambadas Jyoti Bhatt Eric Bowen Jeram Patel Raghav Kaneria Himmat Shah Gulammohammed Sheikh J. Swaminathan Alternate Sensibilities Discourses in Feminism Arpana Caur Nalini Malani Navjot Gogi Saroj Pal Anupam Sud A Language of Minimalism Zarina Hashmi Nasreen Mohammedi The Topsy Turvy World of Magic Realism Amit Ambalal Sakti Burman Dharamnarayan Dasgupta Ranbir Singh Kaleka Sanat Kar P. Khemraj Anjolie Ela Menon New Delhi Modernists Amitava Manjit Bawa Rameshwar Broota Shobha Broota Bimal Dasgupta Biren De Manu Parekh Ved Nayar Ramachandran G. R. Santosh Arpita Singh Silpi Chakra Group Dhanraj Bhagat Avinash Chandra Satish Gujral Bishamber Khanna Devayani Krishna Kanwal Krishna K. S. Kulkarni C. Sanya Mumbai Modernists Altaf Prabhakar Barwe Chittaprosad K. K. Hebbar George Keyt Gieve Patel Prabha Raiba V. Nageshkar Jehangir Sabavala Laxman Shreshtha Region and Identity Cholamandal Artists’ Village J. Sultan Ali Reddappa Naidu Akkitham Narayanan K. C. S. Paniker K. Ramanujam M. Senathipathi S. G. Vasudev V. Viswanadhan Modernists of the South K. M. Adimoolam R. B. Bhaskaran S. Dhanapal P. V. Janakiram L. Munuswamy P. Santhanraj Laxman Pai K. Laxma Goud Badri Narayan G. Ravinder Reddy Krishna Reddy P. T. Reddy S. Krishnaswamy Srinivasulu Thota Vaikuntam Sacred and Sensual Neo-Tantra as a Modern Conceit Jyoti Bhatt Sunil Das Biren De K. V. Haridasan Jeram Patel Sohan Qadri P. T. Reddy G. R. Santosh Erotic Art Ramkinkar Baij Sunil Das K. Laxma Goud M. F. Husain Ranbir Singh Kaleka Prokash Karmakar K. S. Kulkarni Laxman Pai P. T. Reddy G. R. Santosh F. N. Souza Modernism in Indian Sculpture Ramkinkar Baij S. K. Bakre P. Roy Chowdhury Jogen Chowdhury Sankho Chaudhuri Prodosh Das Gupta M. Davierwala Jacob Epstein Tarak Garai Bipin Behari Goswami Satish Gujral Asit Kumar Haldar Dhruva Mistry Mrinalini Mukherjee S. Nandagopal Navjot Nagji Patel K. S. Radhakrishnan S. H. Raza Jamini Roy Himmat Shah Prabhas Sen B. Vithal Other Sculptors

Works of art made by Indian artists for Western patrons in the early colonial period are what we now call Company Painting. The artists, who might otherwise have worked for an Indian court, sought new markets among those employed in various capacities by the European trading companies, and especially the British East India Company. Some patrons supplied the artists with new materials such as European-made paper and transparent watercolour pigments, and expressed preferences regarding subject matter, leading to new departures in both style and substance in Indian art. One of the most delightful genres of Company Painting was natural history: images of India’s plants, animals, and birds. Company Painting Company Paintings British Era

This exhibition takes us on a journey into the lives and works of artists from a diverse range of traditions and practices. Despite differences in technique, philosophy and politics, they are united by an attempt to forge a new language of Indian art which rebels against existing visual vocabularies while seamlessly combining influences from European modernism and the rich history of visual arts from South Asia. This assimilation is achieved in different ways. From M. F. Husain’s figurative renditions of Indian deities to the many languages of abstraction developed by artists like Ram Kumar, Ganesh Haloi and others—we see artists responding variously to the socio-cultural problems of a post-colonial nation.

Indian art defies any easily tailored silos to carve for itself a confident assertion of its own identity within a global context, while being a part of its larger assimilative journey. it is this rich legacy of Indian modernism that we hope to explore with The Centum Series which opens a window to the tantalising glimpse of the extraoridnary depth and breadth of its scope and variety. Akhilesh J. Sultan Ali Altaf Ambadas Amit Ambalal Amitava Anonymous (Early Bengal) Dattatraya Apte Radha Charan Bagchi Ramkinkar Baij S. K. Bakre Prabhakar Barwe R. B. Bhaskaran Jyoti Bhatt Natvar Bhavsar Bikash Bhattacharjee Nikhil Biswas Nandalal Bose Shobha Broota Sakti Burman Avinash Chandra Chittaprosad Jagmohan Chopra Bijan Choudhary Jogen Chowdhury Anita Roy Chowdhury D. P. Roy Chowdhury Thomas Daniell Haren Das Sunil Das

India’s Rockefeller Artists showcases iconic works of the Indian painters and sculptors who travelled to the US on philanthropic grants from the JDR 3rd Fund (1963–1979) and later through the Asian Cultural Council. These artists were exposed to American art and shared their own learnings and experiences through these enriching cultural exchanges. The show examines how and why these artists were selected; their relationships with each other and the American art milieu; the impact of the experience on their work; and the creation of a community of Rockefeller artists.

This exhibition is significant as it marks one of the largest-ever shows of the Progressives and their associate members. It also celebrates the genesis of the Progressive Artists’ Group in Bombay in 1947 and its continued link with the city. Akbar Padamsee Bal Chhabda F. N. Souza H. A. Gade K.H. Ara Krishen Khanna M. F. Husain Mohan Samant Ram Kumar S. H. Raza S. K. Bakre Tyeb Mehta V. S. Gaitonde

Spanning five decades of her painterly career, this retrospective includes iconic works by Madhvi Parekh which represent every phase of her illustrious career. The show also includes rare drawings and paintings from the 1960s, when the influence of Paul Klee’s abstraction on her early work was evident. Given the solid representation of Parekh’s paintings from every decade, the exhibition allows viewers to see the continuity in her vision and focus.

For Shanti Dave, creativity is a consistent and persistent exploration of the word or akshara—a term defined in the Natyashastra as a stroke in musical notes—which he perceives as the source of all creation. Dave’s abstract iconography, beginning in the early 1950s, adapted to modernism, aesthetic continuity and transcultural exchange. He altered, rejected and improvised the archaic image into a resonant form resembling an ancient script.

One of the most distinguished families in Bengal, the Tagores exercised unparalleled influence over the cultural landscape of the region. The Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore (1861 - 1941), and two of his nephews, Gaganendranath Tagore (1867-1938) and Abanindranath Tagore (1871 - 1951) were recognised as India’s National Art Treasure artists. Sunayani Devi (1875 -1962), their sister, is regarded as one of modern India’s first women painters known by name. Her lyrical paintings and embroideries often looked inward to an imagined world of fables and myths. At the turn of the twentieth century, we see Abanindranath emerging as the founder of the Bengal School as he envisioned a new Indian art that was free of colonial influence, rooted in pan-Asianism. Gaganendranath, on the other hand, was a prolific satirist and cartoonist, who imagined new forms and perspectives inspired by Cubism. Together they formed the influential Indian Society of Oriental Art in 1907, while Rabindranath’s school and university at Santiniketan would continue to shape modern art in Bengal for generations to come.