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The DAG booth at India Art Fair has always aspired to provide its thousands of visitors with their most unique art-viewing experience based on rarity, historicity, and quality, raising the bar each year with works of sterling importance in addressing the art history of the subcontinent.  Abanindranath Tagore, Allah Bux, Anonymous (Early Bengal), Dhanraj Bhagat Jamini Roy, Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar, M. A. R. Chughtai, M. F. Husain, Madhvi Parekh, Nandalal Bose, Nirode Mazumdar, Prabhakar Barwe, S. K. Bakre, Sailoz Mookherjea, Shanti Dave, Sohan Qadri, Thomas Daniell, Raja Ravi Varma, Edwin Lord Weeks, F. N. Souza, M. V. Dhurandhar

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On the thirtieth year of DAG’s presence in the Indian art landscape, we are especially delighted to share with our readers the first issue of our Journal. DAG has upheld a high quality of research through exhibitions and publications that have shaped how people understand Indian modern art. Through this journal, we want to keep those discussions going and point towards newer ways to approach the period of modernism—joining the dots that lead those significant artistic breakthroughs into the contemporary. We also want to create a space where readers can gain privileged access into the people and organizations who works around the clock to keep the art world ticking.  

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Twenty years after India’s independence, Films Division, the government’s documentary and propaganda filmmaking body, was seeking to re-invent itself. It had the mandate of recording the nation’s history on film. It was also a project of moulding the citizen through films that were screened in cinema theatres, before the entertainment feature. The films covered varied subjects from development, self-reliance, social issues, to art and culture, making them an invaluable archive of the Indian state’s record of the nation’s history as a modern, progressive nation. The films remained largely unpopular, like homework, among the unwilling audience of people who waited for the entertainment film to follow the documentary. 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.

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English painter George Chinnery, who spent almost his entire career in the East and is today celebrated for his Oriental pictures of idyllic, daily scenes from India and China, was born in London on 7 January 1774.

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Shanti Dave’s abstracts resemble—at first—the familiar and the unknown. There are writings, figures, deities, forms and shapes that resonate with what we seem to know. If the language is indecipherable, perhaps it belongs to some ancient texts lost to history. Is this his ode to a civilisation that existed in the past, or a prophesy of one to come? Is it a world hidden underwater? Or perhaps one alien to us because it comes from some other planet? Are these tombstones, or markers, of some mythological or historical realm?

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As printing technologies improved around the turn of the 18th century, a large number of cheaply reproduced printed pictures—illustrated books, almanacs and mythological images—became available to the common people. This became an important vehicle of social change because people could own, produce and disseminate images of all kinds—from their beloved deities and favourite fictional characters to political cartoons critiquing colonial authorities. Printmaking was equally treasured by artists for its aesthetic potential, as techniques like lithography, etching, metal engraving, viscosity, gave practitioners infinite opportunities for creative exploration. This landmark exhibition gives us a comprehensive overview of the history of the printed picture in India.

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Nemai Ghosh (1934-2020) is primarily remembered today as the photographer who, through his lens, composed a visual biography of Indian filmmaker, Satyajit Ray, for a period spanning close to three decades. This exhibition draws from DAG's extensive collection of Nemai Ghosh's ouevre to explore his work with Ray, while also exploring his contribution to documenting and immortalising the best of Indian cinema.

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For millennia, Banaras has captured the imagination of poets, writers, philosophers, and artists. Its sacredness, music, textiles, and food have been extensively explored and commented upon. It has been a muse for countless artists, who have found an abundance of inspiration on the ghats that skirt the Ganga, and in the city's narrow streets and crowded alleyways.

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In celebration of birds and the long relationship art has shared with the winged creatures, this exhibition brings together four folios to present portraits of Indian birds made in the early nineteenth century. While representations of birds date back to the Ajanta murals, naturalistic imagery reached its peak in Mughal art under Emperor Jahangir. In the late 18th century two connected developments emerged in Lucknow and Calcutta. While General Claude Martin provided imported European paper to the artists in Lucknow to prepare botanical studies and other natural history works, in Calcutta Mary, Lady Impey (wife of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Bengal, Elijah Impey) had a menagerie where she employed artists to portray variety of animals and birds. Dr. William Roxburgh, superintendent of Calcutta Botanical Garden from 1793, also added to the discourse of natural history by appointing local artists to make botanical studies of the specimens in his charge. The efforts of Martin, Impey, Roxburgh and their artists gave rise to a large body of Company Paintings dedicated to natural history.

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Continuing its theme of introducing Indian abstractionists at Art Dubai, DAG handpicked works by eight eminent abstract artists and juxtaposed them to bring into focus how brushwork and colour are imbued with emotion and can compel viewers to spend hours studying such works. The artists presented by DAG at Art Dubai 2018—Ambadas, Sohan Qadri, Natvar Bhavsar, Avinash Chandra, Rajendra Dhawan, Shanti Dave, Ram Kumar and S. H. Raza—worked in different styles but their use of vivid colours highlighted this somewhat neglected genre of art in India that has begun to enjoy a premium in recent years. These artists had their studios in different parts of the world—Copenhagen, Oslo, New York, Paris, London, New Delhi—but had one thing in common: they were all of Indian origin and had trained and begun their careers in India. AMBADAS SOHAN QADRI NATVAR BHAVSAR AVINASH CHANDRA SHANTI DAVE G. R. SANTOSH J. SWAMINATHAN RAM KUMAR JERAM PATEL RAJENDRA DHAWAN K. V. HARIDASAN

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For its debut participation in the modern section of Art Dubai 2017, DAG focussed on the unconventional theme of Neo-Tantra as a way of bringing India’s unique school of abstraction to global attention. The booth featured works by two of the country’s leading practitioners of this school—G. R. Santosh and Biren De. The stunning, colour- and energy-filled canvases drew all eyes towards itself, making it the singularly most-visited booth in the section.

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