Search results for: 'Works of Devi Prasad'

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

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

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.

Artists often proceed through a trial and error method—an incessant experimentation—leaving behind a singular trail of oeuvre composed of an irreconcilable, yet inseparable, set of works. Born in the small town of Sojitra in the Kheda district of Gujarat, Jeram Patel studied drawing and painting at Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay. In 1959, excellence in his work led him to pursue commercial design at Central School of Arts and Crafts, London, on a scholarship, and also travel to France and Japan. Thereafter, he successfully held solo exhibition at various places in India and abroad, and participated in international events such as the Tokyo Biennale and Sao Paulo Art Biennale (both in 1963).

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

The Devi or the female power in Hindu mythology appears in various avatars in our everyday lives—as idols during the puja, on covers of magazines, product labels, calendars and posters. The modern history of visualising the Devi goes back to naturalistic depictions in oil paintings by the Early Bengal artists, which were surpassed in popularity and fame by Raja Ravi Varma and his studio. His representation, however, was regarded as too human-like by artists of the Bengal School in the early twentieth century, who created idealised forms based on a synthesis of classical visual traditions. In the twentieth century, we find artists responding to distinctive traits of the goddess to portray specific aspects of her power, or to convey the artist's own relationship with divinity. Few artists who have turned to Hindu myths have been able to escape the temptation to interpret the female power in their own way, and the diversity in style, medium, and mood is a testament to that.

Most shows at DAG take time to develop because of the quality of research and scholarship they require to mount, but even by our own exacting standards, Continuum has taken longer than most. This, a retrospective in a sense of the six artists who formed the Progressive Artists’ Group, is seminal because it is for the first time since 1950 that the six artists forming the core group have been brought together in an exhibition of their works. The Progressives have become the rallying point for the modern movement in Indian art, and are considered among the most important artists of the last and current century. Of these, M. F. Husain, F. N. Souza and S. H. Raza dominate the market. Alongside, works by their contemporaries K. H. Ara, H. A. Gade and S. K. Bakre, who have largely been seen to have underperformed in comparison, will help re-draw such distinctions and place them on the same platform as their better-known peers. It will re-define their historical importance and gain them the recognition that is their due. Maqbool Fida Husain M.F.Husain Hari Ambadas Gade Syed Haider Raza Krishnaji Howlaji Ara Sadanandji k. Bakre Francis Newton Souza

A guided walk of the first free circulating public library of India—Uttarpara Public Library—with researcher Sarbajit Mitra, traversing the history of regional literary cultures, and sifting through their vast archive to delve into the vibrant world of illustrated periodicals in colonial Bengal, followed by a poetry reading by Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee. 

A musical evening at Prasad Tagore Palace, the heritage residence of Pramantha Tagore, preceded by a conversation with Sujaan Mukherjee about the Tagore family’s ties to music, theatre, and art patronage.

The fifth edition in the Manifestations series continues the tradition of showcasing the very best of Indian modern art. Seventy-five artists feature in Manifestations 5, bringing together the country’s best known and most established modern artists. To reduce the work of one whole century (give or take a few decades more or less) could be flawed, for this most dynamic period in Indian art history covers many genres, styles, mediums, and influences, and is difficult to paraphrase, especially in the absence of a theme for the collection. It is for this reason that the selection has to be incisive, open to change till the very end, where the addition, or deletion, can change the contextual bird’s eye-view we hope to provide in every series. The exhibition is accompanied by our traditional publication that helps to create a comprehensive understanding about the exhibition’s curatorial decisions. A. H. Muller Altaf Ambadas Amit Ambalal Amitava Arpita Singh Avinash Chandra Badri Narayan Bhupen Khakhar Bikash Bhattacharjee Bimal Dasgupta Biren De Bireswar Sen C. Douglas Chintamani Kar Chittaprosad D. P. Roy Chowdhury Dhanraj Bhagat Dharamnarayan Dasgupta F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Ganesh Haloi Ganesh Pyne Gogi Saroj Pal Gopal Ghose Himmat Shah Indra Dugar J. C. Seal J. Sultan Ali J. Swaminathan Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jogen Chowdhury Jyoti Bhatt K. C. S. Panicker K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Kulkarni Krishen Khanna Kshitindranath Majumdar L. Munuswamy Lalu Prasad Shaw Laxman Pai M. F. Husain M. V. Dhurandhar Nandalal Bose Navjot Nikhil Biswas P. Khemraj Paritosh Sen Partha Pratim Deb Prabhakar Barwe Prodosh Das Gupta Prokash Karmakar Prosanto Roy Rabin Mondal Rabindranath Tagore Rameshwar Broota Ramkinkar Baij Rekha Rodwittiya S. H. Raza S. L. Haldankar Satish Gujral Shobha Broota Sohan Qadri Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Surendran Nair V. S. Gaitonde Vasudha Thozhur Ved Nayar Viswanadhan Vivan Sundaram Zarina Hashmi

Manifestations, DAG’s signature exhibition showcasing the very best of modern Indian art, appears this winter in its landmark tenth edition, bringing together seventy-five of India’s best-known and most established modernists. The artworks are grouped by genre into the categories of mythology, landscape, still-life, figurative, narrative and abstract art, and present the mature styles of the participating artists. Raiba A. M. Davierwalla Abanindranath Tagore Ambadas Arpana Caur Avinash Chandra Benode Behari Mukherjee Bikash Bhattacharjee Biren De Chittaprosad D. P. Roy Chowdhury Dhanraj Bhagat Early Bengal (Anonymous) F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Gaganendranath Tagore Ganesh Haloi Ganesh Pyne George Keyt Gieve Patel Gogi Saroj Pal Gopal Ghose Haku Shah Hemanta Misra Hemendranath Majumdar Himmat Shah Indra Dugar J. Sultan Ali J. Swaminathan Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jogen Chowdhury Jyoti Bhatt K. C. S. Panicker K. G. Subramanyan K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Kulkarni K. S. Radhakrishnan Kalighat Pat (Anonymous) Laxman Pai M. A. R. Chughtai M. F. Husain M. V. Dhurandhar Manu Parekh Meera Mukherjee N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Dharamnarayan Dasgupta Nikhil Biswas P. Khemraj P. T. Reddy P. V. Janakiram Paritosh Sen Piloo Pochkhanawalla Prosanto Roy R. Vijaivargiya Rabin Mondal Rabindranath Tagore Raghav Kaneria Raja Ravi Varma Ramkinkar Baij S. Dhanapal S. H. Raza S. K. Bakre Satish Gujral Shanti Dave Shyamal Dutta Ray Sohan Qadri Somnath Hore Sunayani Devi Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Thota Vaikuntam V. Nageshkar

The art of the twentieth century may be too recent for us to judge it from the viewpoint of longevity, but if the past is any criterion, art is set to outlive us by far—a reason why its documentation is one of the more important tasks before us. This is where the Manifestations series is so important. It encourages discussion and debates around the selection of unique works by seventy-five acknowledged artists spanning a century (or more) of Indian modernism across a range of variously permutable combinations: periods, movements, mediums, materials, regions.  Raiba Ambadas Arpana Caur Arun Bose Asit Kumar Haldar Avinash Chandra Bal Chhabda Bikash Bhattacharjee Bimal Dasgupta Biren De Bireswar Sen C. Douglas Chittaprosad Devayani Krishna Dhanraj Bhagat Dharamnarayan Dasgupta Early Bengal (Anonymous) F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Ganesh Pyne Gogi Saroj Pal Himmat Shah Indra Dugar J. C. Seal J. Sultan Ali J. Swaminathan Gaganendranath Tagore Raja Ravi Varma Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jyoti Bhatt K. Adimoolam K. C. S. Paniker K. G. Subramanyan K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Radhakrishnan Kalighat Pat (Anonymous) Khagen Roy Krishen Khanna L. Munuswamy Laxman Pai Laxman Shrestha M. F. Husain M. Senathipathi M. V. Dhurandhar N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Navjot Nemai Ghosh Nikhil Biswas P. Khemraj P. T. Reddy Paritosh Sen Partha Pratim Deb Prokash Karmakar Prosanto Roy Rabin Mondal Rabindranath Tagore Radha Charan Bagchi Ram Kumar Ranbir S. Kaleka Robert Ker Porter S. H. Raza Sakti Burman Satish Gujral Shanti Dave Shyamal Dutta Ray Gopal Ghose Sohan Qadri Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Thota Vaikuntam Ved Nayar