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Are the histories of art and fashion distinct from each other? Even a cursory glimpse at the contemporary art landscape—on view during occasions such as the India Art Fair, 2023—tells us otherwise. Fabrics, textiles and weaving practices are being increasingly incorporated into the body of works produced by artists today. They bring with them a host of connotations, historical narratives and sensorial memories that working with other media does not. Uthra Rajgopal, a curator and collection adviser for museums, spoke with DAG briefly on the practice of collecting textiles for museums, their historical significance as artworks as well as trading commodities from South Asia, and how contemporary artists are responding to this complex colonial legacy through their own interventions.  

How did the idea of Indian art come to be constructed over the last century and more? The painstaking work of collectors and curators went a long way towards establishing the history of art in India. In this article we highlight some of the most significant collectors of art from South Asia over the course of the twentieth century. Usually starting as personal collections, most of them would eventually donate their works to museums in India or abroad, allowing these rare works to be seen regularly by new generations of art enthusiasts across the world. Their collections, curated exhibitions and publications fashioned the canons of Indian modern and pre-modern art

Art Lab by DAG’s Museums Programme is a pop-up art exhibition of facsimiles of works from the DAG Museum Collection that travels to schools and introduces students to modes of visual learning. After two successful iterations in CBSE and ICSE schools in Kolkata, Art Lab travelled to its first Bengali medium West Bengal Board school—Barisha Janakalyan Vidyapith for Girls. Through three days of workshops spread across two weeks, the students interacted with the artworks, learnt the basics of research, delved into historical material, and developed their own creative projects. Take a peek at some of the wonderful projects they curated as they took over the exhibition and made it their own.

The exhibition features several works of academic realist portraiture from early 20th century—vivid oil portraits by masters of the form such as Pestonji Bomanji, M. F. Pithawalla, Baburao Painter and L. N. Taskar as well as charcoal sketches by M. V. Dhurandhar, an academic artist of renown of the same period. The selection features Western academic oil-influenced works on mythological themes by the school referred to as Early Bengal and two works painted in a Raja Ravi Varma-derived style—an anonymous work by the Ravi Varma ‘School’ and Aroomoogam Pillay. A. A. Almelkar Abalall Rahiman Abani Sen Akbar Padamsee Ambadas Anonymous (EarlyBengal) Anonymous (Portraiture ) Anupam Sud Aroomoogam Pillay Avinash Chandra Baburao Painter Badri Narayan Bijan Choudhary Bikash Bhattacharjee Biren De Chintamoni Kar Chittaprosad D. P. Roy Chowdhury Devyani Krishna Dharamnarayan Dasgupta F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh G. Ravinder Reddy Ganesh Haloi Gogi Saroj Pal Gopal Ghose H. A. Gade Himmat Shah J. Sultan Ali J. Swaminathan Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jogen Chowdhury Jyoti Bhatt K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Kulkarni K. V. Haridasan Kshitindranath Majumdar L. Munuswamy L. N. Taskar Laxman Pai M. F. Husain M. F. Pithawalla M. V. Dhurandhar Madhvi Parekh Mukul Dey N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Nasreen Mohammedi Nicholas Roerich Nikhil Biswas P. Khemraj P. T. Reddy Paritosh Sen Pestonji E. Bomanji Prosanto Roy Rabin Mondal Ram Kumar Ramkinkar Baij Ravi Varma ‘School’ S. H. Raza S. K. Bakre Sadequain Sailoz Mukherjea Shanti Dave Shyamal Dutta Ray Sohan Qadri Sudhir Patwardhan Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Tarak Garai Ved Nayar Walter Langhammer

Gogi Saroj Pal, seen often as one of the first ‘feminist’ women painters in modern Indian art, has consistently explored the condition and inner life of women. Women’s lives, their desires and compulsions, and the complex and magical world of the feminine have been Gogi’s frequent subjects. In her work, Gogi explores and responds to the vast reserve of myths, fables and lore that abound in India, interested in excavating, in particular, its religious and literary traditions. She traces and frequently creates new mythical/celestial female beings of great strength and potency, such as the Hathyogini-Kali—skilled yoga practitioner and potent female force—who assert themselves in a modern landscape where women are frequently denied agency.

Landscape art arrived in India through travelling European artists who brought the aesthetic of painting mountains, rivers and trees against the sky and a distant horizon—nature as a subject in itself —to Indian art, where it had traditionally only formed a backdrop in narrative-driven, figural paintings. The genre remained popular throughout the nineteenth century with a great demand for landscapes of India both in Europe and among the newly anglicised elite in India. Its popularity began to wane with the advent of modernism and a growing emphasis on the human figure, but several Indian artists, a significant name among them Gopal Ghose, continued to practice the form, now absorbing a wide range of new artistic trends and influences. A.A. Almelkar Abanindranath Tagore Ambika Dhurandhar Amitava Anonymous (Company School) Anonymous (Early Bengal) Atul Bose Avinash Chandra B. C. Gue B. N. Arya Bhupen Khakhar Bijan Choudhary Bikash Bhattcharjee Bimal Dasgupta Bireswar Sen Bishnupada Roychowdhury Chittaprosad D. C. Joglekar D. J. Joshi Devraj Dakoji Devyani Krishna Dharamnarayan Dasgupta Dulal Gue E. A. Dadi Edward Cheney F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh G. S. Haldankar Ganesh Haloi Gobardhan Ash Gopal Ghose H. A. Gade Haren Das Hirachand Dugar Indra Dugar J. P. Gangooly Jamini Roy John Deschamps Jyoti Bhatt K H. Ara K. C. S. Panicker K. K. Hebba K. Laxma Gou K. S. Kulkarni Kanwal Krishna Kisory Roy Kripal Singh Shekhawat L. N. Taskar L. P. Shaw Lalit Mohan Sen Laxman Pai M. F. Husain M. V. Dhurandhar Manishi Dey Mukul Dey N. R. Sardesai N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Nikhil Biswas Olinto Ghilardi P. Khemraj Paramjit Singh Pestonji E. Bomanji Prokash Karmakar Prosanto Roy Radha Charan Bagchi Raja Ravi Varma Ram Kumar Ramendranath Chakravorty Ramkinkar Baij Ranen Ayan Dutta Richard Barron Robert Grindlay S. G. Thakur Singh S. K. Bakre S. L. Haldankar Satish Sinha Sudhir Khastgir Sunil Das Thomas Daniell William Carpenter William Hodges

The birth of Amrita Sher-Gil to an Indian father and Hungarian mother bequeathed to the nation one of its most incandescent artists. Known for her luminous paintings, her work changed the face of modern Indian art and paved the course it was to take in the country. In a rare sculpture of tigers made, poignantly enough, in the last year of her life, Amrita Sher-Gil is revealed as someone exploring new directions before her tragic demise in 1941.

G. R. Santosh created a hugely accomplished career without formal training in art. His abstract paintings made in the early 1960s had Kashmir as his muse, and often used encaustic and beeswax—a process he learned from Shanti Dave. Architect and designer Pinakin Patel shares his views about In the Snows of Kashmir, Santosh’s masterful painting with textural relief in a monochrome palette.

Prabhakar Barwe’s Eighty-Five Safety Pins is a pioneering work that merges technology and traditional art. Created in 1991 using graphic design software on an Apple Macintosh, Barwe explored the concept of pixels, a hallmark of the digital era, while incorporating his signature enamel paint. This innovative approach reflects his curiosity about embracing the unknown future and reinterpreting it artistically. By abstracting the safety pin from its conventional form, Barwe invites viewers to reconsider its essence, offering an open-ended visual experience that challenges preconceived notions and encourages alternative perspectives. Art connoisseur Shireen Gandhy, a friend of the late artist, takes us behind the making of this extraordinary painting.

This Untitled painting, created in the early-to-mid-1970s, reflects Shanti Dave's fervent experimentation during a prolific period marked by international recognition in mural making and exhibitions. Drawing inspiration from childhood memories of Badapura and nearby archaeological ruins, the abstract composition blends colour pigments, beeswax, and oil solutions in a dynamic interplay. Employing a reverse image technique with molten wax, the painting challenges perceptions and invites contemplation on the nature of truth. Noted fashion designer and art-collector Tarun Tahiliani explains the nuances of Shanti Dave’s work in a film specially created on the painting.

S. H. Raza had begun to paint using oils, moving away from his impressionistic watercolours, on his way to winning the prestigious critics’ award in 1956. Just a year before, he completed a stunning painting of Parisian rooftops, revealing not a daylight scene but one of the night, only yellow lamplight from the streets dimly silhouetting the chimneys and sloping roofs. This period of Raza’s career is somewhat lesser known than his later, tantra-inspired works, as Ashok Vajpeyi and Aman Nath explain to us.