Search results for: 'British artists in'

In celebration of birds and the long relationship art has shared with the winged creatures, this exhibition brings together four folios to present portraits of Indian birds made in the early nineteenth century. While representations of birds date back to the Ajanta murals, naturalistic imagery reached its peak in Mughal art under Emperor Jahangir. In the late 18th century two connected developments emerged in Lucknow and Calcutta. While General Claude Martin provided imported European paper to the artists in Lucknow to prepare botanical studies and other natural history works, in Calcutta Mary, Lady Impey (wife of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court in Bengal, Elijah Impey) had a menagerie where she employed artists to portray variety of animals and birds. Dr. William Roxburgh, superintendent of Calcutta Botanical Garden from 1793, also added to the discourse of natural history by appointing local artists to make botanical studies of the specimens in his charge. The efforts of Martin, Impey, Roxburgh and their artists gave rise to a large body of Company Paintings dedicated to natural history.

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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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It was in the 1970s that the government of India declared nine artists as National Treasures, attesting to the significance of their contribution to the shaping of modern Indian art identity. ‘Navratna: Nine Gems of Indian Art’ was a unique opportunity to see seminal works by all the nine together, to understand the uniqueness of their collective contribution, at Drishyakala, a joint collaboration between DAG and the Archaeological Survey of India. Learn More

The most definitive painter of the portraits of the Sikh gurus, Sobha Singh was born on 29 November 1901 at Gurdaspur in the Punjab. Interested in the arts since childhood, he learnt to draw and sculpt on his own, the early death of his parents depriving him of formal training in art. He joined the British Indian army as a draughtsman and continued to learn from studying the works of English and European artists. Learn More

Laxman Narain Taskar’s paintings mirror the ideals of academic realism introduced by the British within their art education system. Indian artists were trained in naturalism, with lessons in soft effects of chiaroscuro and the three-dimensionality of the external world. History painting, perspective, and the copying of Victorian portraits became a vital ingredient within these art schools. Learn More

Exemplifying the art of the now-forgotten Bombay School, which was based on realism, or naturalism, as taught by the British, D. C. Joglekar was one of the finest artists who captured India’s panoramic landscapes along with her glorious architectural wonders, including temples, monuments, and archaeological sites. Learn More

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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We might think of landscape as the most obvious and natural subject for painting. What could be simpler than an artistic response to the world of nature? And yet, civilisations have not always produced landscape paintings. Landscape as an independent genre—with the primary focus not on action but on scenery—was first championed by the Chinese in the ninth century. It was introduced into English art only in the eighteenth century. Elements of nature have appeared in Indian art since the murals of Ajanta, but in supporting roles, in images that are primarily sacred or courtly. Pure landscape painting arose in India only in the nineteenth century, in response to colonial practice. A A ALMELKAR AVINASH CHANDRA BABURAO SADWELKAR BHUNATH MUKERJEE BIJAN CHOUDHARY BIRESWAR SEN CHITTAPROSAD DEVRAJ DAKOJI DEVYANI KRISHNA DHARAMANARAYAN DASGUPTA GANESH HALOI GOBARDHAN ASH HAREN DAS K. K. HEBBAR KANWAL KRISHNA KISORY ROY M. K. PARANDEKAR M. V. DHURANDHAR MANISHI DEY MUKUL DEY New Found Lands NIKHIL BISWAS PESTONJI E BOMANJI PRAN KISHAN PAUL RABIN MONDAL RAMENDRANATH CHAKRAVORTY RAMKINKAR BAIJ SAKTI BURMAN SUNIL DAS THOMAS DANIELL WILLIAM HODGES WILLIAM PARKER

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With ‘Indian Portraits: The Face of a People’, DAG uncovers the layers that have gone into the practice of portraiture in the country—a survey exhibition spanning two centuries of the genre in India. From British and Indian royalty to streetside portraiture, this is a quick overview of an India past and present. Learn More

The idea of primitivism centres on the wish to identify with, or respond to, elements of a society that are deemed ‘primitive’. In artistic terms, it is about rejecting realism, simplifying technique and reducing the formal means of expression to a ‘primitive’ state. The term itself is borrowed from discussions of Western art, where high-profile examples include the images of Tahiti and its people made in the 1890s by Paul Gauguin, and responses to African sculpture by Pablo Picasso in 1906-09. The second thread of primitivism—the reduction of formal means—is best exemplified by the ‘cut-outs’ made by Henri Matisse in the 1940s.

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Colonization is perhaps best understood as a process that unfolded over time than as a single historical event. In India and South Asia it began with the East India Company acquiring rights over land in different parts of the country, with the occasional political victories won on the battlefields. Since the Battle of Plassey (1757), their power over legislative and judicial matters grew steadily, backed by a strong military presence. Following the First War of Independence in 1857, the British Crown brought most parts of the Indian subcontinent under its direct rule, continuing to hold power until 1947.

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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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