FRIEZE Masters

curatorial note

India’s inherent aestheticism enjoyed a civilizational legacy that impacted the way cubism was absorbed into its art. Divorced from the deep sense of social anxiety and economic despair that prevailed across Europe, India was witnessing a moral upsurge as freedom embraced its shores. The brittle fragmentation that marked Western cubism was replaced in India by a gentle, even graceful, lyricism. In creating its own lexicon, Indian modernism widened the cubist vocabulary and gave it an individual identity.

This experimentation flowered and flourished, to which this curated selection pays ode through the early works of tantra artists Biren De and G. R. Santosh, the Sri Lankan modernist George Keyt, Bengal masters Ramkinkar Baij, Prosanto Roy and Paritosh Sen, and other luminnaries such as Avinash Chandra, A. A. Raiba, Laxman Pai, S. K. Bakre, Rabin Mondal, P. T. Reddy, Jyoti Bhatt and J. Sultan Ali.

This exhibition brings numerous priceless works that define the history of Cubism in India—shown in London for the first time. Cubism was the true starting point of twentieth-century art and opened up new horizons. This showcase and acknowledgement of India’s tryst with cubism goes a long way in identifying the myriad streams that inform the language of modernism in twentieth century Indian art.