Search results for: '19th century india through the eyes of'

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This exhibition is significant as it marks one of the largest-ever shows of the Progressives and their associate members. It also celebrates the genesis of the Progressive Artists’ Group in Bombay in 1947 and its continued link with the city. Akbar Padamsee Bal Chhabda F. N. Souza H. A. Gade K.H. Ara Krishen Khanna M. F. Husain Mohan Samant Ram Kumar S. H. Raza S. K. Bakre Tyeb Mehta V. S. Gaitonde

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A guided walk by urban history researcher Sujaan Mukherjee, uncovering the forgotten histories of monuments and sites around the Indian Museum, and their changing fates after Independence.

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Chittaprosad Bhattacharya (1913-1978) was a versatile artist and a lifelong adherent of the socialistic worldview. In 1943, he traveled across the famine-stricken villages of Bengal and produced realistic sketches of human suffering that were regularly published in the pages of the Communist Party journal 'People’s war'. These sketches were later compiled and published as a booklet under the title 'Hungry Bengal'. Fascinated by his artistic skills, the General Secretary of Communist Party of India, Puran Chand Joshi took Chittaprosad to the Party’s headquarters in Bombay (now Mumbai). 

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One of India’s most important artists, Chittaprosad recorded pivotal political and social movements in the country, such as the Great Bengal Famine of 1943-44 and its fallout, in heart-wrenching sketches and drawings, alongside protests against colonialism, economic exploitation, urban poverty and depravity, just as beautifully as the many drawings, linocuts and scraper board illustrations he made for children, recording a beatific phase of plenitude and family values, and involving himself with marionettes for their entertainment.

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An influential artist who is known for her richly detailed oils and watercolours, Arpita Singh was born in Calcutta in 1937. She studied art at Delhi Polytechnic (now College of Art) from 1954-59, and then joined the Government of India’s cottage industries restoration programme in 1959, which allowed her to meet weavers and artisans. 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

Among the most accomplished watercolourists of modern India, Shyamal Dutta Ray was born in Ranchi, then in Bihar, and studied at Government College of Arts and Crafts, Calcutta, from 1950-55. He was a founding member of Society of Contemporary Artists in 1959, and of Painters 80, founded in 1968. Learn More

Born in Calcutta on 20 October 1947, Shuvaprasanna is a quintessential painter of the eastern metropolis that he unabashedly loves. He graduated from Indian College of Art, Rabindra Bharati University, Calcutta, in 1969. An active member of Calcutta Painters group, urban themes are a constant in his work. Beset by problems and politics, but possessing great potential, Kolkata has remained his abiding inspiration as he absorbs and responds to its upheavals, the tumult of its masses, and its frequent political turbulence. Learn More

One of the nine National Treasure artists of India, Russia-born Nicholas Roerich was not just a painter but a stage designer for ballets, an explorer, writer, and philosopher. As a painter, he is best remembered for his ethereal paintings of the mist-laden and wispy Himalayas, done mostly in tempera or oil. These paintings remain some of the best works celebrating the mighty mountain range. Learn More

Born in Nashik, Maharashtra, M. S. Joshi studied at Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay, in the 1930s. Joshi combined his training in academic realism with a sense of vitality, precision and aesthetics to reveal India’s rich cityscapes and landscapes in his watercolour and gouache works. There was immense depth in the rendering of his subjects, which included people, places, architectural elements, all done in a subdued yet textured palette. Learn More