Search results for: 'modern a'

Calcutta, flourishing with commerce and maritime trade during the nineteenth century, was regarded as the ‘second city’ of the British Empire. People thronged there in large numbers to make a livelihood, or in holy pilgrimage, seeking blessings at the Kali temple at Kalighat that had been re-built in 1809. Annada Prasad Bagchi Bamapada Banerjee B. C. Law C. W. Lawrie Kshetradas Chitrakar Panchanan Karmakar Madhav Chandra Das Ramadhan Swarnakar Ganganarayan Ghosh Nritya Lal Datta Press Kristohurry Das Chorebagan Art Studio Kansaripara Art Studio Calcutta Jubilee Art Studio Bat-tala

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Born in Bangalore to the illustrious K. C. S. Paniker, the father of the Madras Art Movement and the visionary behind Cholamandal Artists’ Village, S. Nandagopal’s tryst with art, unsurprisingly, began early on. Just like his father, Nandagopal’s work was a synthesis of tradition and modernity. Learn More

One of India’s most seminal modernists, Syed Haider Raza was born on 22 February 1922 in Mandla, Madhya Pradesh, and forged a new language of art by integrating Indian symbolism with Western expression. A student of Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay (1943-47), and one of the first members of the Progressive Artists’ Group, the turning point of his career was his journey to Paris in 1950 on a French government scholarship to study at École Nationale des Beaux-Arts. In 1956, he became the first non-French artist to win the critic’s award, the Prix de la critique.

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One of the pioneers of surrealism in Indian modern art, Hemanta Misra was born in Sivasagar, Assam, on 13 October 1917. He went to school in his hometown and later studied at Cotton College, Guwahati, and St. Edmund’s, Shillong. As for the arts, he was self-taught, polishing his skills through a correspondence course with British artist John Hassal. Learn More

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

Steeped in sacred iconography particular to the Indian artist, Sohan Qadri (1932-2011), whose practice in Copenhagen brought him international renown, the ink and dye works represent the artist’s modernist vocabulary – minimalist, rendered in vibrant colours, with a tactile dimensionality that established him as a twentieth century painter whose legacy has impacted viewers around the world. Perhaps no other Indian artist has been as widely collected as Sohan Qadri.

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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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The midwestern city of Chicago hosts one of America’s most important art fairs—Expo Chicago—in which DAG participated in an attempt to introduce Indian moderns to the diaspora there as well as to art-lovers in general. To introduce art to this midwestern population, DAG picked on well-established names from the Indian art marquee. This included the National Treasure artist Jamini Roy whose works outside India are a rarity since they cannot be exported. Others included the Progressives F. N. Souza and M. F. Husain, New York-based printmakers Krishna Reddy and Zarina Hashmi (both now deceased) and artist Natvar Bhavsar, abstractionists Sohan Qadri and G. R. Santosh, a rare sculpture by Prodosh Das Gupta, and a body of other modernists representing the diverse range of works created by Indian artists in the twentieth century. A suite of small format watercolour landscapes by Bireswar Sen was a highlight of the booth. Avinash Chandra Bireswar Sen Chittaprosad F N Souza F N Souza G R Santosh Ganesh Pyne Jamini Roy K.S Kulkarni Krishna Reddy Laxman Pai M F Husain Madhvi Parekh Natvar Bhavsar Paritosh Sen Prodosh Das Gupta Rabin Mondal Sohan Qadri Zarina Hashmi

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For the third year running, DAG participated at the Masterpiece London 2018, the UK’s leading cross collecting fair for art, design and collectibles. For this edition, DAG’s focus was sharper, and created a narrative for Indian modern art that addressed a sophisticated, discerning audience. Bikash Bhattacharjee F N Souza G R Santosh Jamini Roy Krishen Khanna M F Husain Rabin Mondal Ram Kumar Rameshwar Broota Shanti Dave Tyeb Mehta

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DAG’s second outing at Masterpiece London, the prestigious fair for everything from exceptional jewellery, furniture and antiquities to works of art held annually at Chelsea, was marked by outstanding inclusions of works by modern masters. The showstopper was a massive sized British Raj - Procession by M. F. Husain (one of two works, the other being his Theorem II) that grabbed everyone’s attention, but equally hypnotising were paintings by Natvar Bhavsar (Eketak), George Keyt (Two Women Amid Plants), F. N. Souza’s fabulous Temple Dancer, tantra-based paintings by G. R. Santosh, Prabhakar Barwe and a work in relief by Satish Gujral. Bikash Bhattacharjee Natvar Bhavsar Avinash Chandra K. K. Hebbar M. F. Husain Ranbir Singh Kaleka George Keyt Krishen Khanna Jehangir Sabavala G. R. Santosh F. N. Souza

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An artist whose eponymously named art institution groomed some important Indian modern artists such as Ram Kumar and J. Swaminathan, Sarada Charan Ukil was an early pioneer of the Bengal School. Born on 14 November 1888 in Bikrampur near present-day Dhaka, Ukil shifted later to Calcutta with his family and studied at the city’s Government Art School under Abanindranath Tagore. Learn More

Modernist sculptor Madan Lal Gupta is as much known for his constantly evolving experimental practise as for Ram Chhatpar Shilp Nyas, a trust he founded in 1989 in Varanasi for the promotion of contemporary arts and classical music, in memory of his guru, Ram Chhatpar, who passed away at the age of forty-four in 1978. Learn More