Search results for: 'Company painting o'

Did you know that the portrait painter Frank Brooks whose two trips to India won him commissions from the rulers of principalities in the Bombay Presidency, trained Raja Ravi Varma’s brother in the art of figure painting? For his second India voyage (1892-93), he was invited specially to paint the heads of the twenty-eight rulers of the Kathiawar Agency. The subject of this stunning portrait is Thakur Becharsinhji of Chuda, a state so small it did not even merit a gun salute for its ruler. Explore in detail with Kishore Singh, SVP, DAG.

Learn More

Curator Jesal Thacker and art writer Meera Menezes speak about Shanti Dave’s art practice and choice of medium that allowed several elements to come together in his encaustic paintings and layered watercolours.

Learn More

What does it take to liberate a woman’s figure from patriarchal gaze? Courage and conviction, perhaps, as artist Vasundhara Tewari Broota shares in this short interview. Speaking from the experience of painting with courage, the artist also provides a peek into her thought process.

Learn More

He was the colossus of the Indian art world whose reign over twentieth-century modern art remains unparalleled. M. F. Husain (1913-2011) was the face of Indian modernism and owned it completely. Having started out as a painter of billboards in Bombay, he became its unchallenged monarch as a member of the influential Progressive Artists’ Group in 1947. He claimed the first National Award instituted by the Lalit Kala Akademi in 1955, and went on to become India’s most celebrated artist. In a practice that spanned over seventy years, Husain was playful, experimental, provocative, controversial—but never mediocre.

Learn More

Prabhakar Barwe (1936-95) could well have ended up a theoretician whose book 'Kora Canvas' (Blank Canvas) was a manifesto that established the multi-dimensional relationship between an artist, the object on which he paints, and his subjects. That he was not just an intellectual scholar but an artist whose work speaks for him, is evident through a range of works in which Barwe dissects our understanding of the world and how we view it. Taking commonplace objects and our perception of their existence in the space they occupy, he shifts the dialogue to a point of discomfiture that makes us question our understanding of them. Using scale, discordant juxtapositions, and displacements, he reimagines the everyday in a manner that is thought-provoking, even provocative, as alternate realities—whether perceived or imagined.

Learn More

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

Learn More

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.

Learn More

One of India’s most important artists, Chittaprosad recorded pivotal political and social movements in the country, such as the Great Bengal Famine of 1943-44 and its fallout, in heart-wrenching sketches and drawings, alongside protests against colonialism, economic exploitation, urban poverty and depravity, just as beautifully as the many drawings, linocuts and scraper board illustrations he made for children, recording a beatific phase of plenitude and family values, and involving himself with marionettes for their entertainment.

Learn More

The medieval ages saw the rise in India and parts of Asia of philosophical, theological, cultural, literary and visual manifestations that derived from diverse faiths but with one aim—to attain enlightened liberation. Its resistance to Brahmanical texts and hegemony resulted in the creation of geometrical aesthetics that were interpreted by way of texts, paintings, and architecture and had a monumental impact on society. At the centre of its geometric configurations—the triangle, the square, and the circle—lay the idea of Creation itself, the source of primal energy that could to be diverted towards a higher consciousness, and all universe was manifest in this. Learn More

March to Freedom re-interprets the well-known story of the Indian freedom struggle and anticolonial movement through works of art and some historic artefacts. Drawn from the collections of DAG, they range from eighteenth and nineteenth century European paintings and prints, to lesser known works by Indian artists that merit greater recognition, alongside some iconic pieces. Rather than following the usual chronological path, the story is structured around eight themes. Each represents one arena, or stage, on which the anti-colonial struggle took place, to expand the story beyond politics, politicians, and battles (which also feature). Conceived to commemorate and celebrate the 75th anniversary of India’s independence, this visual journey seeks to do more. For even as we remember the struggles, the sacrifices, and the stories, such anniversaries are also occasions for reflection, including upon the scholarship that has developed on South Asian history. Some of the latter may be familiar to academics, or those with special interests. For most of the rest of us, our knowledge of this past is derived in large part from hazy memories of school lessons, which change from one generation to the next, and are influenced by concurrent national politics. We also learn from narratives on offer through public channels or in the media, to mark moments of national remembrance or controversy.

Learn More

How did the multiple trajectories of visual arts develop in the subcontinent? Where did they originate and how did their paths converge? Drishyakala offers a sweeping journey into the heterogenous histories of visual arts in India, from the first European travelling artists who drew landscapes to popular prints of the earliest woodcuts and lithographs evolving into the thriving advertising visuals of the 20th century. The exhibition is broadly divided into four categories, each exploring an unique area of development—the art of portraiture through photography and painting, oriental sceneries drawn by European travelling artists, popular prints from the late eighteenth century to post-independence and artworks of the nine National Treasure Artists. Together, these sections give brief glimpses into the dizzying variety of forms, styles and languages of South Asian art.

Learn More

January 2022 marked an incredible culmination in the life and career of Madhvi Parekh whose journey began from a small village in western India and has taken her, against incredible odds, to the world’s most glittering cities and capitals on the strength of her art practice. At the Paris Haute Couture Week in January, audiences around the world saw Dior launch its new spring/ summer 2022 range against striking tapestries inspired by her paintings made over a six-decade career that has had no parallel in Indian art. Often extolled as a ‘woman’ painter, Madhvi Parekh’s art has never been premised on gender. Instead, she occupies an artistic realm with strong ethical values based on a sense of humanitarianism, environmental inclusion, and memory.

Learn More