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For Shanti Dave, creativity is a consistent and persistent exploration of the word or akshara—a term defined in the Natyashastra as a stroke in musical notes—which he perceives as the source of all creation. Dave’s abstract iconography, beginning in the early 1950s, adapted to modernism, aesthetic continuity and transcultural exchange. He altered, rejected and improvised the archaic image into a resonant form resembling an ancient script.

Nine artists find special mention in India as ‘art treasures, having regard to their artistic and aesthetic value’, a directive by the Archaeological Survey of India in the 1970s. Spanning a period of one hundred years of art practice, these artists represent a diversity of art traditions and movements but are unified by one common thread: a return to Indian roots through context, theme, subject, and an engagement with identity.

An unassuming trailblazer, Gulam Rasool Santosh is the most important artist from the movement known as neo-tantra in Indian art, synonymous with masters such as Biren De and Sohan Qadri. Self-taught, Santosh began his career painting landscapes in his native Kashmir before being spotted by S. H. Raza, which enabled him to study at the Maharaja Sayajirao University at Baroda under the famous artist N. S. Bendre. After a few years of painting figurative and abstract works in the mould of the other Indian Progressives, Santosh’s art changed dramatically towards tantra when he had a mystical experience in the Amarnath cave in 1964. From then on, until his death in 1997, G. R. Santosh dedicated his life to the study and practice of tantra, a yogi as much as an artist.

A great number of short-lived but nonetheless significant art movements arose in India over the twentieth century as Indian artists struggled with evolving or arriving at their identity as modern artists and an appropriate visual language of Indian modernism. One of the most significant amongst these is the artist collective, Group 1890, formed in 1962 with twelve young artists, led by the artist and art critic J. Swaminathan. The group consisted of J. Swaminathan, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Himmat Shah, Jeram Patel, Ambadas, Jyoti Bhatt, Raghav Kaneria, M. Reddeppa Naidu, Rajesh Mehra, Eric Bowen, S. G. Nikam and Balkrishna Patel. Ambadas Balkrishna Patel Eric Bowen Gulammohammed Sheikh Himmat Shah J. swaminathan Jeram Patel Jyoti Bhatt Raghav Kaneria Rajesh Mehra Reddappa Naidu S. G. Nikam

What wonder it must have been for the people in England to ‘see’ India for the first time, the exotica that they had only heard of until then! The artists who made this possible through their paintings and aquatints were the uncle-nephew duo of Thomas Daniell and William Daniell, whose magnum opus, Oriental Scenery, was the subject of this landmark exhibition at Drishyakala, a joint collaboration between DAG and the Archaeological Survey of India.

'Iconic Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art' is an exhibition specially curated to commemorate the opening of DAG’s new galleries at the Taj Mahal Palace in Mumbai. The pathbreaking exhibition of some of the finest nineteenth and twentieth century art related to India consists of fifty outstanding works, each of them exceptional for their historicity, rarity, and quality. Established in 1993, DAG has created an enviable reputation over the decades for its collection and exhibitions of twentieth century art. But with 'Iconic Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art', it draws attention to its growing strength in nineteenth century art, a new area that it has now committed itself to with a growing inventory of Western artists who travelled to India to paint, as well as Indian artists whose identities have remained unknown for lack of adequate documentation. The earliest work in this exhibition, dated 1805-10, is of one of the largest recorded Company Paintings, and concludes with a rare sculpture cast as recently as 2021 in Indonesia. Ramachandran Adi Davierwalla Ambadas Avinash Chandra Bikash Bhattacharjee Dhanraj Bhagat Early Bengal Oils Edwin Lord Weeks F. N. Souza Frank Brooks G. R. Santosh Ganesh Haloi J. Sultan Ali J. Swaminathan Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jogen Chowdhury K. C. S. Paniker K. G. Subramanyan K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Radhakrishnan Krishen Khanna Laxman Pai M. A. R. Chughtai M. F. Husain M. V. Dhurandhar Madhvi Parekh Marius Bauer Natvar Bhavsar Nicholas Roerich Nikhil Biswas Paritosh Sen Prabhakar Barwe Rabin Mondal Rabindranath Tagore Rajendra Dhawan Ram Kumar Rameshwar Broota Ramgopal Vijaivargiya Ramkinkar Baij Ranbir Singh Kaleka Satish Gujral Shanti Dave Sohan Qadri Stefan Norblin Studio of Raja Ravi Varma Sunil Das Tyeb Mehta Company Paintings

From 1797, when British artist Thomas Daniell painted his masterly landscape of Mahabalipuram, to 2003, the year Rameshwar Broota's painting pitching man against metal resulted in a powerful image, the Indian art world has seen a succession of artists and movements that have enriched its vocabulary in more ways than one. Thomas Daniell Sita Ram Early Bengal School Raja Ravi Varma Edwin Lord Weeks Marius Bauer Ustad Allah Bakhsh Studio of Bourne & Shepherd M. V. Dhurandhar Hemendranath Mazumdar M. A. R. Chughtai Nandalal Bose Jamini Roy Laxman Pai J. Swaminathan Francis Newton Souza J. Sultan Ali Rabin Mondal S. H. Raza K. K. Hebbar Akbar Padamsee Tyeb Mehta K. H. Ara S. K. Bakre Bireswar Sen Nirode Mazumdar Shanti Dave Gulam Rasool Santosh Madhvi Parekh Satish Gujral Bikash Bhattacharjee Maqbool Fida Husain Meera Mukherjee Rameshwar Broota

This exhibition takes us on a journey into the lives and works of artists from a diverse range of traditions and practices. Despite differences in technique, philosophy and politics, they are united by an attempt to forge a new language of Indian art which rebels against existing visual vocabularies while seamlessly combining influences from European modernism and the rich history of visual arts from South Asia. This assimilation is achieved in different ways. From M. F. Husain’s figurative renditions of Indian deities to the many languages of abstraction developed by artists like Ram Kumar, Ganesh Haloi and others—we see artists responding variously to the socio-cultural problems of a post-colonial nation.

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.

This is the first-ever retrospective of the Indian modern artist Avinash Chandra who lived most of his life in the West, in London and New York. The artist, who had trained in New Delhi, left soon after for London, and most of his practice was limited to London and New York, the two cities he called his home till his unfortunately early death in 1991. In the roughly three-and-a-half decades of his career, Avinash’s work changed amazingly, reflecting his environment and milieu as he grew and adapted to cities vastly different from their Indian counterparts, with their own sub-cultures. That this happily coincided with a discovery of India, however superfluously, as a land of spirituality and sexuality, seemed to serve him well as his muse.

Manifestations VI features an assortment of seventy-five significant artists curated from its collection. Not organised around theme or style, Manifestations features a single work or a related series of works by each chosen artist, which reflect an important facet of their unique artistic journeys. Usually dominated by 20th century modern Indian art, Manifestations VI features works spanning three centuries, from a ‘Company Painting’ set in Tirunelveli district, Tamil Nadu, done by Thomas Daniell for the East India Company in the 1790s, to an Early Bengal work of a ferocious Kali astride a supine Shiva, to several 20th century modern works. A A. Raiba Ambadas Amitava Anonymous (Early Bengal) Asit Kumar Haldar Avinash Chandra Amitava N. Arya Benode Bihari Mukherjee Bikash Bhattacharjee Bimal Dasgupta Biren De Bireswar Sen Charan Bagchi Chintamani Kar Chittaprosad P. Roy Chowdhury Dharamnarayan Dasgupta F. N. Souza G. R. Santosh Ganesh Haloi George Keyt Gopal Deuskar Gopal Ghose Gulammohammed Sheikh Himmat Shah Indra Dugar J. P. Gangooly J. Sultan Ali Jamini Roy Jeram Patel Jyoti Bhatt Jogen Chowdhury K. C. S. Panicker K. K. Hebbar K. Laxma Goud K. S. Kulkarni Khagen Roy Kshitindranath Majumdar Laxman Pai M. A. R. Chughtai M. F. Husain M. F. Pithawalla M. V. Dhurandhar N. S. Bendre Nandalal Bose Nikhil Biswas P. Khemraj P. V. Janakiram Paritosh Sen Pestonji E. Bomanji Prodosh Das Gupta Prokash Karmakar R. Vijaiwargiya Rabin Mondal Raja Ravi Varma Ram Kumar Rameshwar Broota Ramkinkar Baij Ranbir Singh Kaleka Rasik Durgashankar Raval Radha Charan Bagchi S. H. Raza Satish Gujral Shanti Dave Shobha Broota Shyamal Dutta Ray Sohan Qadri Somnath Hore Suhas Roy Sunil Das Thomas Daniell Tyeb Mehta V. Nageshkar V. S. Gaitonde V. Viswanadhan

Spanning five decades of her painterly career, this retrospective includes iconic works by Madhvi Parekh which represent every phase of her illustrious career. The show also includes rare drawings and paintings from the 1960s, when the influence of Paul Klee’s abstraction on her early work was evident. Given the solid representation of Parekh’s paintings from every decade, the exhibition allows viewers to see the continuity in her vision and focus.