India’s Rockefeller Artists

The India’s Rockefeller Artists: An Indo-US Cultural Saga exhibition showcases iconic works of the Indian painters and sculptors who travelled to the U.S. on grants enabled by John D. Rockefeller III’s philanthropic vision, first through the J.D.R. 3rd Fund (1963–79) and then through the Asian Cultural Council.

These artists were brought to the U.S. to see and understand American art and also to share their own learnings and experiences through a cultural exchange that would enrich communities. The show examines why and how these artists were selected; their relationships with each other and the American art milieu; the impact of the experience on their body of work; and the creation of a community of Rockefeller artists.

The grant benefited some of India’s most important artists, among them V. S. Gaitonde, whose work formed the subject of a retrospective at the Guggenheim, New York, in 2013; Tyeb Mehta, one of the most widely collected artists in private and public collections; Akbar Padamsee, Ram Kumar, Bal Chhabda and Krishen Khanna, all associates of the then Bombay-based Progressive Artists’ Group. Natvar Bhavsar, Jyoti Bhatt, K. G. Subramanyan, A. M. Davierwala, Avinash Chandra, Arun Bose, Paritosh Sen, K. S. Kulkarni, Vinod Dave, Bhupen Khakhar and Rekha Rodwittiya were some of the others whose contribution to Indian art practice in the twentieth century has been seminal.