Search results for: 'Still life with skull - 1961 F.N Souza'

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

Born in 1922, pioneering modernist sculptor Ardeshir M. Davierwalla—fondly called Adi—was a pharmaceutical chemist by training; he went to school in Coonoor, Tamil Nadu, and studied pharmaceutical engineering at the Victoria Jubilee Technical Institute (now known as the Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute) in Bombay. Learn More

Raja Ravi Varma’s singular impact on Indian art is unparalleled by any artist. Largely self-taught, he is probably the first Indian artist to have articulated Indian subject matters through naturalism and the use of oil paints with brilliant mastery, considered until then a European idiom. Learn More

Born in Graz, Austria, Walter Langhammer came to India in the 1930s with his wife Käthe Urbäch, escaping Nazi Germany like other refugees. Some media reports suggest that British authorities had arrested the couple on their arrival in India till a friend, noted art critic Rudolf von Leyden, came to their rescue. Learn More

In Vasundhara Tewari Broota’s practice, the woman is celebrated as a strong force, a ‘subject’ to be understood at a deeper level. Broota studied English literature from Delhi University, did a year of law studies, and pursued art studies from Triveni Kala Sangam, New Delhi. From using palette knives, rollers, even silver leaf, Broota’s techniques have emerged from an intense creative struggle that she has experienced as an artist. Learn More

One of India’s most revered ‘non-objective’ painters—he preferred that term over ‘abstraction’—Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde was born in Nagpur in 1924. He received his diploma in painting from Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in 1948. Impressed by his work, the members of the Progressive Artists’ Group—formed in 1947—pulled him into their meetings. The strength of his talent was soon recognised elsewhere—he won the first prize of the Young Asian Artists Association in Tokyo in 1957, and a John D. Rockefeller III Fund fellowship in 1964. Learn More

Born into a family of painters in Kolhapur, Vasant Anant Mali studied art professionally at Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in the 1920s. It was here that he grasped the nuances of painting through academic realism. Working mostly in the medium of watercolour and oil, Mali keenly observed how some of his teachers, including Walter Langhammer, worked with various tools and applied bold brushstrokes with knife. Mali’s work had a forcefulness, a depth that was unique and could be seen, particularly, in portraits done by him. Learn More

It is ironical that works by Tyeb Mehta, who did not attach much merit to the financial value of art, were the first by a living Indian artist to sell for more than Rs 1 crore, and, soon, for more than a million dollars, indicating a beginning of interest in Indian art in the international market. His works Celebration, Kali and Mahishasura marked the beginning of the boom in the Indian art market at the start of this century. Learn More

One of the earliest British artists to arrive in India on a painting expedition, Thomas Daniell is one half of the famous painting duo, the Daniells, the other being his nephew William, with whom he created some of the earliest and most celebrated views of India.

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Sunayani Devi was born on 18 June 1875 in the Tagore family of talented writers and painters—Nobel-laureate Rabindranath Tagore was an uncle, and Gaganendranath and Abanindranath Tagore were her elder brothers. Essentially a self-taught artist, she witnessed the Bengal renaissance, but it was only in her thirties that she began to paint, encouraged by her husband, the grandson of reformist Raja Ram Mohun Roy. Learn More

Born in Dacca (now Dhaka) in present-day Bangladesh, Suhas Roy had a difficult childhood after the early demise of his father. Yet, he pursued his passion for the arts with the support of his mother and studied at Indian College of Arts and Draughtsmanship, Calcutta, where he would eventually return as college principal. Learn More