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

Jamini Roy’s was an art of quiet resistance that assimilated so seamlessly into the folk and craft traditions of Bengal that it did not cause any discernible ripples among the prevalent artistic mood. All around him, art was being nurtured, questioned, uprooted—it was, after all, a period when nationalist feelings ran high and a search for an indigenous lexicon was paramount—but Jaminida’s ability to look to tradition for a modern approach, though revolutionary, was instinctively natural and organic. It was art that everyone understood and wanted to take home. No wonder Jamini babu became a household name in his native Calcutta and went on to be honoured as one of the pre-eminent National Treasure artists of the country whose art has the greatest acceptance of any known Indian modernist.

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The term ‘abstract’ has been loosely used, more so in the Indian context, where we have only a vague notion of what it implies. Even the slightest distortion in art is popularly referred to as abstraction. And while distortion ultimately results in abstraction, the two are at opposing ends of the visual pole as far as understanding the genre goes. Over several years, viewers have been guided almost by a gut instinct of what constitutes abstract art. And though one concedes that rigid compartments to demarcate genres are neither practical, nor desirable, some understanding of what constitutes abstract art is essential. A. M. Davierwalla Akbar Padamsee Ambadas Amitava Amrut Patel Asit Kumar Haldar Avinash Chandra Baburao Sadwelkar Benode Behari Mukherjee Bikash Bhattacharjee Bimal Dasgupta Biren De Bishamber Khanna Biswanath Mukerji Devayani Krishna Devraj Dakoji Dhanraj Bhagat Dharamnarayan Dasgupta F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Ganesh Haloi H. A. Gade Hemanta Misra Himmat Shah J. Swaminathan Jeram Patel Jyoti Bhatt K. C. S. Paniker K. G. Subramanyan K. S. Kulkarni Krishna Reddy L. Munuswamy Laxman Pai Laxman Shrestha M. F. Husain Nasreen Mohamedi P.Khemraj P.T.Reddy Partha Pratim Deb Piloo Pochkhanawala Prabhakar Barwe Prabhakar Kolte Prokash Karmakar R. M. Palaniappan R. N. Pasricha Rabin Mondal Raghav Kaneria Ram Kumar S. G. Vasudev S. H. Raza S. K. Bakre S. R. Bhushan Sanat Kar Sankho Choudhuri Satish Gujral Shanti Dave Shobha Broota Sohan Qadri Somnath Hore Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Tapan Ghosh V. S. Gaitonde V. Viswanadhan Vivan Sundaram Zarina Hashmi

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Francis Newton Souza, born on 12 April 1924, was expelled from school, then from his college—Sir J. J. School of art, Bombay—and later, as he insisted on saying, from his own country. Born in Goa, Souza’s catholic mother brought him up to be a priest, but he showed early signs of rebellion that would become an integral part of his life.

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The exhibition brings together important and unusual works of art that span a wide range of genres, forms, periods and styles. They are grouped by genre, of abstract art, figurative art, landscape art, portraiture and still-life. Each thematic arrangement features a select collection of artworks from the artist’s mature period, several of which are of substantial art historical significance. Ambadas S. K. Bakre Avinash Chandra V. S. Gaitonde Ganesh Haloi Hemanta Misra Jeram Patel Sohan Qadri S. H. Raza Krishna Reddy G. R. Santosh Laxman Shreshtha Figurative J. Sultan Ali A. A. Almelkar Amitava Radha Charan Bagchi Bikash Bhattacharjee Nikhil Biswas Sakti Burman Chittaprosad Bijan Choudhary Prodosh Das Gupta Dharamnarayan Dasgupta Biren De S. Dhanpal M. V. Dhurandhar Shyamal Dutta Ray Early Bengal (Anonymous) K. Laxma Goud Satish Gujral M. F. Husain Kalighat Pat (Anonymous) Prokash Karmakar George Keyt Krishen Khanna P. Khemraj K. S. Kulkarni Ram Kumar Kshitindranath Majumdar Tyeb Mehta Anjolie Ela Menon Rabin Mondal M. Reddappa Naidu Badri Narayan Navjot Laxman Pai Gogi Saroj Pal Gieve Patel Ganesh Pyne Ravi Varma School (Anonymous) P. T. Reddy Jamini Roy Paritosh Sen Sunil Madhav Sen B. Vithal Landscape Akbar Padamsee Kisory Roy F. N. Souza J. Swaminathan Portraits Anonymous Jyoti Bhatt Sankho Chaudhuri Jogen Chowdhury Sunil Das Olinto Ghilardi Surendran Nair M. F. Pithawalla A. A. Raiba Himmat Shah Rabindranath Tagore Still-life K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar B. Prabha Jehangir Sabavala S. G. Thakur singh

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This is the first-ever retrospective of the Indian modern artist Avinash Chandra who lived most of his life in the West, in London and New York. The artist, who had trained in New Delhi, left soon after for London, and most of his practice was limited to London and New York, the two cities he called his home till his unfortunately early death in 1991. In the roughly three-and-a-half decades of his career, Avinash’s work changed amazingly, reflecting his environment and milieu as he grew and adapted to cities vastly different from their Indian counterparts, with their own sub-cultures. That this happily coincided with a discovery of India, however superfluously, as a land of spirituality and sexuality, seemed to serve him well as his muse.

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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.

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The art of the twentieth century may be too recent for us to judge it from the viewpoint of longevity, but if the past is any criterion, art is set to outlive us by far—a reason why its documentation is one of the more important tasks before us. This is where the Manifestations series is so important. It encourages discussion and debates around the selection of unique works by seventy-five acknowledged artists spanning a century (or more) of Indian modernism across a range of variously permutable combinations: periods, movements, mediums, materials, regions.  Raiba Ambadas Arpana Caur Arun Bose Asit Kumar Haldar Avinash Chandra Bal Chhabda Bikash Bhattacharjee Bimal Dasgupta Biren De Bireswar Sen C. Douglas Chittaprosad Devayani Krishna Dhanraj Bhagat Dharamnarayan Dasgupta Early Bengal (Anonymous) F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Ganesh Pyne Gogi Saroj Pal Himmat Shah Indra Dugar J. C. Seal J. Sultan Ali J. Swaminathan Gaganendranath Tagore Raja Ravi Varma Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jyoti Bhatt K. Adimoolam K. C. S. Paniker K. G. Subramanyan K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Radhakrishnan Kalighat Pat (Anonymous) Khagen Roy Krishen Khanna L. Munuswamy Laxman Pai Laxman Shrestha M. F. Husain M. Senathipathi M. V. Dhurandhar N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Navjot Nemai Ghosh Nikhil Biswas P. Khemraj P. T. Reddy Paritosh Sen Partha Pratim Deb Prokash Karmakar Prosanto Roy Rabin Mondal Rabindranath Tagore Radha Charan Bagchi Ram Kumar Ranbir S. Kaleka Robert Ker Porter S. H. Raza Sakti Burman Satish Gujral Shanti Dave Shyamal Dutta Ray Gopal Ghose Sohan Qadri Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Thota Vaikuntam Ved Nayar

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Manifestations VI features an assortment of seventy-five significant artists curated from its collection. Not organised around theme or style, Manifestations features a single work or a related series of works by each chosen artist, which reflect an important facet of their unique artistic journeys. Usually dominated by 20th century modern Indian art, Manifestations VI features works spanning three centuries, from a ‘Company Painting’ set in Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu, done by Thomas Daniell for the East India Company in the 1790s, to an Early Bengal work of a ferocious Kali astride a supine Shiva, to several 20th century modern works. A A. Raiba Ambadas Amitava Anonymous (Early Bengal) Asit Kumar Haldar Avinash Chandra Amitava N. Arya Benode Bihari Mukherjee Bikash Bhattacharjee Bimal Dasgupta Biren De Bireswar Sen Charan Bagchi Chintamani Kar Chittaprosad P. Roy Chowdhury Dharamnarayan Dasgupta F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Ganesh Haloi George Keyt Gopal Deuskar Gopal Ghose Gulammohammed Sheikh Himmat Shah Indra Dugar J. P. Gangooly J. Sultan Ali Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jyoti Bhatt Jogen Chowdhury K. C. S. Panicker K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Kulkarni Khagen Roy Kshitindranath Majumdar Laxman Pai M. A. R. Chughtai M. F. Husain M. F. Pithawalla M. V. Dhurandhar N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Nikhil Biswas P. Khemraj P. V. Janakiram Paritosh Sen Pestonji E. Bomanji Prodosh Das Gupta Prokash Karmakar R. Vijaiwargiya Rabin Mondal Raja Ravi Varma Ram Kumar Rameshwar Broota Ramkinkar Baij Ranbir Singh Kaleka Rasik Durgashankar Raval Radha Charan Bagchi S. H. Raza Satish Gujral Shanti Dave Shobha Broota Shyamal Dutta Ray Sohan Qadri Somnath Hore Suhas Roy Sunil Das Thomas Daniell Tyeb Mehta V. Nageshkar V. S. Gaitonde V. Viswanadhan

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Born in Nagpur, B. Prabha became an artist at a time when not many Indian women practiced it as a profession. She studied at the Nagpur School of Art and obtained a diploma from Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in 1955. Learn More

Stepping up its efforts to familiarise viewers with the extensive range of Indian modern art, DAG occupied an extensive booth at the India Art Fair 2014, where over 300 paintings and sculptures were displayed, featuring about 125 artists. The specially designed booth was the centre of attraction at the fair and the most prominent destination for art lovers wanting to understand the development of Indian art from the point of its history, chronology, movements, periods, regions, or genres. It was an art history lesson brought to life and was thronged by visitors. Special talks were organised at the booth. A 332-page catalogue was specially published for the fair and remains a compendium of India’s greatest artists ever. A. A. Almelkar A. A. Raiba A. D. Tavaria A. M. Davierwalla Abalall Rahiman Abanindranath Tagore Akbar Padamsee Altaf Amalnath Chakladhar Ambadas Amitava Aroomoogam Pillay Arpana Caur Avinash Chandra B. C. Law B. Prabha Badri Nath Arya Bal Chhabda Benjamin Hudson Benode Behari Mukherjee Bhupen Khakkar Bijan Choudhary Bikash Bhattacharjee Bimal Dasgupta Bipin Behari Goswami Biren De Bireswar Sen Chintamoni Kar Chittaprosad D. P. Roy Chowdhury Dhanraj Bhagat Dharamanarayan Dasgupta Early Bengal Oil (Anonymous) F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Gaganendranath Tagore Ganesh Haloi Ganesh Pyne George Keyt Gieve Patel Gogi Saroj Pal Gopal Ghose H. A. Gade Haren Das Hemanta Misra Hemendranath Majumdar Henry Singleton Himmat Shah Indra Dugar J. Sultan Ali J. Swaminthan Jacob Epstein Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jogen Chowdhury Jyoti Bhatt K. C. S. Panicker K. G. Subramanyan K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Kulkarni Kalighat Pat Kanwal Krishna Khagen Roy Kisory Roy Krishen Khanna Kshitindranath Majumdar L. Munuswamy L. N. Taskar L. P. Shaw Laxman Pai M. A. R. Chughtai M. F. Husain M. F. Pithawalla M. V. Dhurandhar Manjit Bawa Manu Parekh Meera Mukherjee Mohan Samant N. R. Sardesai N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Nemai Ghosh Nikhil Biswas P. Chander Sheker P. Khemraj P. T. Reddy P. V. Janakiram Paritosh Sen Pestonji E. Bomanji Portrait (Anonymous) Prabhakar Barwe Prodosh Das Gupta Prokash Karmakar Prosanto Roy R. Vijaivargiya Rabin Mondal Rabindranath Tagore Radha Charan Bagchi Raghav Kaneria Raja Ravi Varma Ram Kumar Ramendranath Chakravorty Rameshwar Broota Ramkinkar Baij Ravi Varma School (Anonymous) S. Dhanapal S. G. Thakur Singh S. H. Raza S. L. Haldankar S.K. Bakre Sailoz Mukherjea Sankho Choudhuri Satish Gujral Shiavax Chavda Shyamal Dutta Ray Sohan Qadri Somnath Hore Suhas Roy Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Thomas Daniell Tyeb Mehta V. Nageshkar V. S. Gaitonde Ved Nayar

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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

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