Search results for: 'dora make my bridge extra hard for you to get across'

Born in Gujarat to a family of farmers, Nagji Patel grew up making clay toys as part of playing with village children. He joined the painting course at Faculty of Fine Arts, M. S. University, Baroda, but eventually switched to sculpture, which he found less daunting than painting. He obtained an M.F.A. in sculpture in 1964 and in the same year won a travelling scholarship from the Government of India, which allowed him to visit quarries across the country and interact with stone carvers. 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

Learn More

The 1960s was a period of immense change around the world, and it had deep ramifications on India’s socio-political scenario. The country had left behind the jubilation of Independence and was feeling the pinch of a nation grappling with the issues of development that impacted society and environment. A war with China in 1962 and Pakistan in 1965 had far-reaching implications on the national psyche— the first of shame, the latter of pride. Crippling shortages and unemployment were impacting life, even as the country’s success with the Green Revolution was directed at self-sufficiency. Migration from the villages to urban centres was increasing. Disparities—economic, gender or class—provided fertile ground for the alienation of the other. The more anglicised among the youth found themselves being drawn into the vortex of a global hippie movement. A. A. RAIBA AMBADAS ANUPAM SUD AVINASH CHANDRA BIKASH BHATTACHARJEE BIMAL DASGUPTA DHANRAJ BHAGAT F. N. SOUZA G. R. SANTOSH HIMMAT SHAH J. SULTAN ALI J. SWAMINATHAN JAMINI ROY JERAM PATEL JOGEN CHOWDHURY JYOTI BHATT K. G. SUBRAMANYAN K. LAXMA GOUD KRISHEN KHANNA LAXMAN PAI M. F. HUSAIN MADHVI PAREKH P. T. REDDY PARITOSH SEN PRABHAKAR BARWE PRODOSH DASGUPTA PROKASH KARMAKAR RABIN MONDAL RAM KUMAR RAMESHWAR BROOTA S. H. RAZA S. K. BAKRE SAKTI BURMAN SATISH GUJRAL SHANTI DAVE SOHAN QADRI SOMNATH HORE SUNIL DAS ZARINA HASHMI

Learn More

The 1970s was a decade like no other for a young India gaining in confidence nationally as well as on the global firmament. In 1971, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi led the country to a decisive victory against Pakistan, leading to the creation of Bangladesh. The Green Revolution had borne fruit, and Operation Flood now launched a milk revolution in the country, and the culmination of the privy purse turned it into a socialist republic with a strong handle on its economic button. Internationally, much was made of India’s resilience, and the country’s soft power began to win it recognition for its films, fashion, food and culture. India had arrived. ALTAF AMBADAS AMITAVA AVINASH CHANDRA BIKASH BHATTACHARJEE BIREN DE BIRESWAR SEN ERIC BOWEN F. N. SOUZA G. R. SANTOSH GANESH HALOI GOGI SAROJ PAL INDRA DUGAR J. SULTAN ALI J. SWAMINATHAN K C S PANIKER K. K. HEBBAR K. LAXMA GOUD KRISHNA REDDY LAXMAN PAI M. F. HUSAIN MADHVI PAREKH NAVJOT ALTAF P. T. REDDY PARITOSH SEN PRABHAKAR BARWE PRODOSH DASGUPTA PROKASH KARMAKAR RABIN MONDAL RAJENDRA DHAWAN RAM KUMAR S G VASUDEV SATISH GUJRAL SHANTI DAVE SHYAMAL DUTTA RAY SOHAN QADRI TYEB MEHTA V. VISWANADHAN ZARINA HASHMI

Learn More

'The City as a Museum' in an annual art and heritage festival by DAG's Museums Programme. The second edition returned to Kolkata to celebrate the city's rich history of artistic practices and exchange. We travelled across the city and beyond to heritage spaces, artists' homes, and rare collections through unique walks, workshops, talks, performances and more. Explore a snapshot of this journey through photographs by Parameshwar Halder.

Learn More

The wash technique has come to be associated in India with the art of the Bengal School, but the story of its origins in India takes us back to an era of rich cultural exchanges. In the early twentieth century artists like Abanindranath Tagore were trying to imagine a pan-Asian cultural identity, and they turned for inspiration to traditions from across Persia to Japan. Rabindranath Tagore's friendship with Okakura Kakuzō occasioned the arrival of several Japanese artists in Kolkata, such as Yokoyama Taikan, Hishida Shunsō and Katsuta Shōkin. While the latter found inspiration in the Hindu epics, artists in Bengal adapted techniques that were used by the Japanese, such as the wash technique or the subtle use of ink and brush. Since then, the wash technique has been interpreted widely by individual artists, offering an ethereal quality of light to their works, or, in some cases, like for Gaganendranath Tagore and Prosanto Roy, new possibilities of painting in various shades of darkness.

Learn More

One of India’s most revered ‘non-objective’ painters—he preferred that term over ‘abstraction’—Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde was born in Nagpur in 1924. He received his diploma in painting from Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in 1948. Impressed by his work, the members of the Progressive Artists’ Group—formed in 1947—pulled him into their meetings. The strength of his talent was soon recognised elsewhere—he won the first prize of the Young Asian Artists Association in Tokyo in 1957, and a John D. Rockefeller III Fund fellowship in 1964. Learn More

Born Gulam Rasool Dar in a Shia Muslim family in Srinagar in Kashmir on 20 June 1929, the artist took on his wife’s Hindu name ‘Santosh’ as his own, in a move opposing patriarchy and religion. His father’s death forced a young Gulam to work as a signboard painter, papier-mâché artist, and weaver. He learnt to paint watercolour landscapes from Dina Nath Raina in Kashmir before studying under N. S. Bendre at M. S. University, Baroda, on the recommendation of S. H. Raza. In Baroda, he produced a large body of figurative and landscape works, mainly in the cubist style. Learn More

The exhibition Tantra on the Edge: Inspirations and Experiments in Twentieth Century Indian Art is a pioneering attempt to gather together works of sixteen prominent Indian artists under the single thematic rubric of the transient but least definable phases of contemporary art in the last century. The exhibition features the artworks, inspirations, and experiments, of artists that had a sustained relationship with tantra philosophy, its vivid, abstract, sacred symbols, or their personal spiritual illuminations. Biren De G. R. Santosh Gogi Saroj Pal J. Swaminathan Jyoti Bhatt K. C. S. Paniker Manu Parekh P. T. Reddy Prabhakar Barwe R. B. Bhaskaran S. H. Raza Satish Gujral Shobha Broota Sohan Qadri Sunil Das V. Viswanadhan

Learn More

The Kalighat temple came up in Calcutta in 1809, drawing communities of traditional artisans who began to produce pats or paintings on religious and mythological themes, sold to the pilgrims as souvenirs. Traditionally painted on cloth accompanied by vocal renditions of the illustrated, these pats were now produced by the largely anonymous pat makers, or patuas, on paper—cheap and easily accessible—in response to urban needs. They remained popular till the early decades of the twentieth century. Learn More

England shaped Altaf’s political consciousness as well as his persona. He engaged in the anti-apartheid demonstration at Trafalgar Square held against the imprisonment of Nelson Mandela; a peaceful protest at the American Embassy opposing the bombing in North Vietnam; the Aldermaston March against the nuclear bomb; the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament; he became a member of the Youth Wing of the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Young Communist League (YCL). Any examination of the theoretical aspect of Altaf’s work must start with the knowledge that the work in question exemplified an element of ‘existentialist’ thought. 

Learn More

The series of aquatint prints known as Oriental Scenery represent the single largest and most impressive project by English artists to depict Indian architecture and landscape. Thomas Daniell (1749-1840) and his nephew William Daniell (1769-1837) travelled extensively in India between 1786 and 1793. On their return to Britain they produced many paintings, drawings and prints based on the sketches they had made while travelling. The aquatints were issued in pairs between March 1795 and December 1808. Subscribers who purchased all of them could assemble them into six volumes, each with 24 prints, making up a total of 144 – of which half are shown here.

Learn More