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At the three-day show, DAG will present Celebrating the Modern, an ode to the vibrancy of Indian art with a hand-picked selection that guides us through the development of Indian modernism through diverse movements and genres—a tribute to its appeal that has extended beyond time to be part of a distinctive global language.

‘Celebrating the Modern’ is DAG’s ode to the vibrancy of Indian art with a hand-picked selection spanning a century that saw the development of Indian modernism through diverse movements and genres—a tribute to its appeal that has extended beyond time to be part of a distinctive global language.

Sunayani Devi picked up a paintbrush in 1905 when she was thirty years old while supervising her kitchen duties, self-taught, but with enough talent to attract the critical attention of Stella Kramrisch who organised an exhibition of her paintings in Germany in 1927. It was in her worthy footsteps that India’s women artists followed. Devayani Krishna was born five years after Sunayani Devi began painting; Amrita Sher-Gil already had a career in Paris by the time India’s first art school-trained woman artist, Ambika Dhurandhar, earned her diploma in Bombay. B. Prabha followed next, her work reflecting the realities of the marginalised in a piquant language. By the time Nasreen Mohamedi and Zarina Hashmi, both born a decade before Independence, established their careers, women were joining art schools in greater numbers, validating their practice not on the basis of their gender but on its context. Anupam Sud Devayani Krishna Gogi Saroj Pal Latika Katt Madhvi Parekh Mrinalini Mukherjee Navjot Rekha Rodwittiya Shobha Broota Zarina Hashmi

Shown at the Shanghai Biennale, exhibited in New York, widely admired for his consistency throughout his career, Rabin Mondal’s excoriating paintings are a savage indictment of social and political ills. A reticent, reserved artist, Mondal’s works offer a scathing commentary on the pursuit and abuse of power. A primal, primordial figuration describes his work in which people in positions of authority are rendered vulnerable because of the very power they aspire to. Their contorted features and clawed hands and feet represent their venality. Strong outlines, naked brushstrokes and potent use of green and red characterise most his work.

For its fourth consecutive outing at Masterpiece London, DAG continued with the tradition of showing artists who had grown in appeal at the city’s truly cross-collecting ‘masterpiece’ fair, but with enough surprises to interest even the most fair-hardened visitor. From a large and vivid G. R. Santosh to a collection of small-sized Bireswar Sen watercolours, the selection was sensitively curated keeping in mind the cosmopolitan nature of London city and the visitors to the fair. Along with the Progressives, the exhibition included one of the finest sculptures created by Adi Davierwalla, remarkable paintings by Tyeb Mehta, Bikash Bhattacharjee, J. Sultan Ali, Avinash Chandra, and Hemen Mazumdar. As always, the emphasis in the booth lay in creating a rarefied visitor experience in which a handful of works allowed visitors to enjoy them at leisure without causing visual fatigue. The response was overwhelming. G. R. SANTOSH BIRESWAR SEN MADHVI PAREKH S. H. RAZA F. N. SOUZA TYEB MEHTA J. SULTAN ALI DHANRAJ BHAGAT BIKASH BHATTACHARJEE AVINASH CHANDRA SHANTI DAVE ADI DAVIERWALLA SATISH GUJRAL HEMEN MAZUMDAR SOHAN QADRI BIREN DE

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

This exhibition looks at the diverse range, moods and styles that primitivism has taken in India, some artists practicing entirely in that style, while others experimenting with it in part, or sporadically. One can count simplicity and a move away from sophistication as key components, as also an inclination or at least a nod towards the folk. The exhibition does not attempt to be a comprehensive survey of India’s primitivists—there are others who would bear inclusion—but is an attempt to understand a body of work and how, given its Western countenance, it can be understood in the Indian context. More than anything else, it offers a clearer view than in the past of what primitivism might mean in the context of modern Indian art. Amrita Sher-Gil F. N. Souza George Keyt Himmat Shah J. Sultan Ali Jamini Roy Jogen Chowdhury K. G. Subramanyan K. S. Kulkarni M. F. Husain Madhvi Parekh Mohan Samant Rabin Mondal Rabindranath Tagore Ramkinkar Baij Sunayani Devi

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.

Jamini Roy’s was an art of quiet resistance that assimilated so seamlessly into the folk and craft traditions of Bengal that it did not cause any discernible ripples among the prevalent artistic mood. All around him, art was being nurtured, questioned, uprooted—it was, after all, a period when nationalist feelings ran high and a search for an indigenous lexicon was paramount—but Jaminida’s ability to look to tradition for a modern approach, though revolutionary, was instinctively natural and organic. It was art that everyone understood and wanted to take home. No wonder Jamini babu became a household name in his native Calcutta and went on to be honoured as one of the pre-eminent National Treasure artists of the country whose art has the greatest acceptance of any known Indian modernist.

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.