India Art Fair 2025

curatorial note

Spices and textiles may have formed the currency of trade in medieval India but what lured people to the subcontinent were legends about a land with more gods than kings and more histories than words to tell them with. The Age of Discovery brought in sailors and soldiers, traders and merchants, conquerors and settlers, writers and, finally, artists. And so, the world learned of India through stories and images that beckoned and beguiled, conflating the exotic with the real. Colonial artists and their acolytes sought to paint landscapes and portraits, while their local counterparts preferred narratives teeming with popular mythologies. India's art practices, therefore, experienced and assimilated changes, gaining from each confrontation, nurturing a range of artistic styles, mediums and contexts.

'India Past and Present' takes its cue from this rich tapestry in which unidentified masters from the diverse array of Indian art share space with Western artists who travelled to India. The earliest academically trained artists with a pedagogy in Western art, later paved the way for the Indian modernists, among whom were some who then moved to foreign shores to live and paint.

Based on the vibrant cycle of absorption and experimentation, this curated collection of some of DAG's finest works, speaks of the rich heritage and legacy of pre-modern and modern Indian art that survives into the present.