Search results for: 'Calcutta art studio'

'Iconic Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art, Edition 2' opened on 11 February, featuring fifty artworks which shaped the trajectory of pre-modern and modern art in the country. As part of the exhibition, Tapati Guha-Thakurta discusses Nandalal Bose seminal role in cultivating a new ethos of art practice at Kala Bhavan and reflects on his untitled work commonly known as ‘The Artist’s Studio’ drawn in the caricaturist mode. Learn More

Chittaprosad (1915 – 1978) was an artist of the people. A firm believer in the power of political art to bring tangible change in society, he is remembered for political cartoons and caricatures lampooning the ruling elite while championing the cause of the working class.

He was also a dedicated journalist working for the Communist Party of India (CPI) and was sent by the party to document the effects of the Great Bengal Famine of 1943 in Bengal’s villages and towns. He would come back with harrowing stories and sketches of hunger and death and publish them in the CPI’s journal People’s War, something that would prove to be extremely important in the face of British censorship on news about the famine.

Post-Independence, Chittaprosad distanced himself from the CPI due to ideological differences and moved to the outskirts of Bombay. He continued registering protest through his art but focussed increasingly on art for children. He setup a puppet studio, Khela-ghar and created beautiful retellings of epics and folk tales in print.

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A print is an original work of art created and printed by hand by an artist or a professional printing assistant from a ‘matrix’—a plate, block of stone, wood or stencil. The image is created on the matrix and the artist takes a limited number of impressions or prints off it. These impressions are numbered and signed by the artist and belong to a limited edition, and this makes the print an original work of art and not a reproduction. Printmaking consists of a wide range of processes: relief printmaking which consists of techniques like engraving, woodcut and linocut; planographic processes such as lithography and oleography, intaglio processes such as drypoint, etching, aquatint, mezzotint, photo processes and collography; and serigraphy, where the image is printed through a silk screen on to the paper. A P Bagchi A Ramachandran Abanindranath Tagore Ajit Dubey Akhilesh verma Akkitham Naryanan Amitabh Banerjee Amitava Anonymous Print Anupam Sud Arun Bose B P Banerjee Basudev Roy Bengal Lithograph Bengal Oleographs Bengal Woodcut Benod Behari Mukherjee Bhupen Khakhar Bijan Choudhury Chittaprosad Daniell William Devraj Dakoji Devyani Krishna Francis N Souza F. B Solvyns Ganesh Haloi Gulam Sheikh Haren Das Himmat Shah Indu Rakshit Indumati Roop Krishna Jagdish Dey Jagmohan Chopra Jai Zahrotia Jamini Roy Jyoti Bhatt K Laxma Goud K V Haridasan Krishna Ahuja Krishna Reddy Lalu Prasad Shaw M F Husain M. V Dhurandhar Madhvi Parekh Maniklal Banerjee Manu Parekh Moti Zahrotia Mrinalini Mukherjee Mukul Dey Nagji Patel Nalini Malani Nandalal Bose Navjot Paneer Selvam Partha Pratim Deb Portrait Punjab Litho Qamrool Hassan R B Bhaskaran Rabin Mondal Radha Charan Bagchi Ram Kumar Ramendranath Chakravorthy Ramkinkar Baij Rani Dey Ravi Varma Press Ravi Varma Print Rini Dhumal Sakti Burman Sanat Kar Satish Gujral Shobha Broota Shyamal Dutta Ray Somnath Hore Sudhir Khastgir Sunil Das Sunil Madhav Sen Suren Gangooly Sushanta Guha Sushil Sen Suvaprasanna Tapan Bhowmik Tarak Basu Thoman Daniell V Vishwanadhan Various Litho and Olio Vijay Bagodi Vinayak Masoji Vivan Sundaram Walter D’Souza Yogesh Rawal Zainul Abedin

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The exhibition brings together important and unusual works of art that span a wide range of genres, forms, periods and styles. They are grouped by genre, of abstract art, figurative art, landscape art, portraiture and still-life. Each thematic arrangement features a select collection of artworks from the artist’s mature period, several of which are of substantial art historical significance. Ambadas S. K. Bakre Avinash Chandra V. S. Gaitonde Ganesh Haloi Hemanta Misra Jeram Patel Sohan Qadri S. H. Raza Krishna Reddy G. R. Santosh Laxman Shreshtha Figurative J. Sultan Ali A. A. Almelkar Amitava Radha Charan Bagchi Bikash Bhattacharjee Nikhil Biswas Sakti Burman Chittaprosad Bijan Choudhary Prodosh Das Gupta Dharamnarayan Dasgupta Biren De S. Dhanpal M. V. Dhurandhar Shyamal Dutta Ray Early Bengal (Anonymous) K. Laxma Goud Satish Gujral M. F. Husain Kalighat Pat (Anonymous) Prokash Karmakar George Keyt Krishen Khanna P. Khemraj K. S. Kulkarni Ram Kumar Kshitindranath Majumdar Tyeb Mehta Anjolie Ela Menon Rabin Mondal M. Reddappa Naidu Badri Narayan Navjot Laxman Pai Gogi Saroj Pal Gieve Patel Ganesh Pyne Ravi Varma School (Anonymous) P. T. Reddy Jamini Roy Paritosh Sen Sunil Madhav Sen B. Vithal Landscape Akbar Padamsee Kisory Roy F. N. Souza J. Swaminathan Portraits Anonymous Jyoti Bhatt Sankho Chaudhuri Jogen Chowdhury Sunil Das Olinto Ghilardi Surendran Nair M. F. Pithawalla A. A. Raiba Himmat Shah Rabindranath Tagore Still-life K. H. Ara K. K. Hebbar B. Prabha Jehangir Sabavala S. G. Thakur singh

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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

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By the end of the century, however, the scene was changing, and infrastructure—following the economic reforms in 1991—began to improve, creating an interest in collecting art. Twentieth century Indian modern art has since been at the forefront of collecting and investing in Indian art, and DAG, which has the largest private collection of Indian art has a marked focus on this period of Indian art. Ambadas F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh George Keyt Jamini Roy K. K. Hebbar Kanwal Krishna Laxman Pai M. F. Husain M. F. Pithawalla M. V. Dhurandhar Madhvi Parekh Nandalal Bose Nemai Ghosh Prokash Karmakar Rabin Mondal

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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.

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Among all attempts by foreign artists to present a complete view of India, none is so focused on people as the work of François Baltazard Solvyns, who lived in Calcutta for a decade starting in 1791. While picking up odd jobs, he embarked on an ambitious project to produce a comprehensive survey of ‘the manners, customs, and dresses, of the Hindus’. The first edition contained 250 hand-coloured etchings and was published by Solvyns between 1796 and 1799.

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Samuel Bourne (1834—1912) was a British photographer known for his prolific seven years' work in India, from 1863 to 1870. Landing first at Madras, then Calcutta, he travelled across the subcontinent—leading some of the earliest photographic trips to the Himalayas—and wrote about his first impressions of the places he visited.

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‘Iconic Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art, Edition 02’, the second iteration of DAG’s annual exhibition that redefines the concept of modernism in the Indian context, will be on view in New Delhi this month. Timed to coincide with the launch of its new gallery in the capital, ‘Iconic Masterpieces’ brings together the finest instances of art created in the country by Western and Asian travelling artists and Indian masters spread a little over two centuries. Selected for their rarity, historicity, and excellence, each work of art in this exhibition marks the zenith in terms of the quality of art created in different periods and styles in the subcontinent.

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India’s Rockefeller Artists showcases iconic works of the Indian painters and sculptors who travelled to the US on philanthropic grants from the JDR 3rd Fund (1963–1979) and later through the Asian Cultural Council. These artists were exposed to American art and shared their own learnings and experiences through these enriching cultural exchanges. The show examines how and why these artists were selected; their relationships with each other and the American art milieu; the impact of the experience on their work; and the creation of a community of Rockefeller artists.

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A visit to the chilekotha studio of contemporary artist Ushnish Mukhopadhyay to witness his experiments with assemblage through fragmented images and disassociated objects.

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