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Shifting Visions: Teaching Modern Art at the Bombay School

Shifting Visions: Teaching Modern Art at the Bombay School

Shifting Visions: Teaching Modern Art at the Bombay School

Shifting Visions: Teaching Modern Art at the Bombay School - DAG World

Shifting Visions: Teaching Modern Art at the Bombay School

J. J. School of Art, Architecture and Design

Mumbai, 7 March - 23 March 2025

Exhibition by DAG and J.J. School of Art and Architecture

M. V. Dhurandhar

At Chowpatty Beach

Oil on canvas

c. 1934

24.0 X 36.0 in. / 61.0 X 91.4 cm.

Collection: DAG

About The Exhibition Exhibition View Partners


As the city of Bombay flourished as a centre of trade under British rule in the nineteenth century, the J.J. School of Art was established with the aim of breathing new life into the arts and industrial craft traditions of India. Observational drawing practices, based on scientific principles, became the cornerstone of art education. And over time, the identities of the artists and craftsmen began to shift as pedagogical approaches evolved.

Subsequently, in the years leading up to India’s Independence, the emergence of the Swadeshi movement infused a nationalist consciousness into artistic practice that sought to reinvigorate indigenous traditions and brought about profound changes in aesthetic outlooks. At the School, these changes would inspire the emergence of a variegated modernism that sought to reconcile international innovations in style with the country’s rich cultural pasts. This culminated in the formation of the ‘Young Turks’ collective in 1941, who would help define post-Independence India’s visual language and pave the way for others to come.

This exhibition juxtaposes student works, sketches and documentary projects with masterpieces from the collections of DAG and The Sir J. J. School of Art, revealing how the School’s training influenced the formation of a complex artistic identity during the high noon of colonialism.

L. N. Taskar

Untitled (Maharashtra Temple Scene)

Oil on canvas

Collection: DAG

EMERGENCE


By the end of the nineteenth century there was a shift in emphasis from training craftsmen and their children, as reflected in the dropping of the word ‘Industrial’ from the School’s name in 1873. The artists we tend to remember from this period constituted the earliest galaxy of star pupils, drawn largely from the Presidency’s elite communities, which included M. V. Dhurandhar, who considered the School his ‘Temple of Art’, Abdul Aziz ‘Abalal’ Rahiman, M. F. Pithawalla, L. N. Taskar and Pestonji Bomanji. Their identity and practice as a new class of ‘fine’ artists was shaped by diverse assignments they took on as students, which ranged from design, decoration, documentation and portraiture.

Scholars have more recently argued against seeing these artists merely as mediums for disseminating a colonially-mandated educational agenda, choosing instead to focus on their ‘subtle contestations’ within the establishment.

Pestonji Bomanji

Untitled

Oil on Canvas, c. 1900

Registered work (non-exportable)
Collection: DAG
M. V. Dhurandhar (illustrator)

M. V. Dhurandhar (illustrator)

The Brass and Copper Wares of the Bombay Presidency (Lamps)

Lithograph on paper pasted on paper, 1896-97

Collection: DAG


CRAFTSMAN OR ARTIST?

The School’s focus on training native craftsmen was largely dependent on individual pedagogues. However, requirements for admission often asked for skills in literacy and mathematics, which became a significant barrier for these intended beneficiaries. Class hierarchies manifested visibly in photographic documentation of craft traditions and reports of exhibition displays. As the executive commissioner of the Colonial and Indian exhibition of 1886 would put it, the ‘body of native artizans’ (sic) put on display was ‘undoubtedly the most attractive feature of the whole Exhibition.’

M. V. Dhurandhar

M. V. Dhurandhar

Untitled

Oil on Paper

13.0 X 9.5 in. / 33.0 X 24.1 cm,
Collection: DAG


TRAINING THE EYE

Following the model of the South Kensington School, London, art schools of India acquired plaster casts of sculptures, perpetuating new ideals of beauty inspired by classical European forms.

‘Standing in front of the huge plaster-of-Paris statues of the Venus de’ Medici… I felt as if in a dream…’, M.V. Dhurandhar wrote, ‘I went round and round the statues and yet I was not sated…’ Later in his career, however, while serving as temporary ‘inspector of examinations’, he criticised the use of inferior plaster cast copies, advocating instead for direct observation of natural forms.

Abalal Rahiman

Abalal Rahiman

Untitled

Charcoal dust on paper

17.5 X 14.0 in. / 44.45 X 35.56 cm,
Collection: Sir J. J. School of Art


DRAWN FROM LIFE

Early stages of education were focused on teaching ‘accurate drawing’; progressing from elementary lines, freehand and shaded freehand to geometrical drawing. The aim was to proceed from ‘line to the solid object and then on to nature’.

Sir Richard Temple, a former Governor of Bombay and Director of Public Instruction would speak of drawing as a ‘specially civilising subject’. Author of The Elements of Drawing, John Ruskin’s belief in the interconnectedness of art, beauty, and morality positioned drawing as a transformative practice that shaped both individual character and societal values.

CLASSROOM TO COMMISSIONS


The academic curriculum of the School fluctuated throughout much of the nineteenth century, shaped by shifting perspectives on the abilities of Indian craftsmen and artisans, and evolving philosophies about the proper object of teaching art and craft. Early teachers emphasised the cultivation of aesthetic taste while introducing scientific methods of drawing and observation, structuring the curriculum into several progressive stages. By the end of the century, however, there was a conscious effort to balance scientific precision with creative expression.

Indian students started joining the faculty in the last decades of the nineteenth century, but they faced rigorous examination requirements to be deemed ‘Art Masters’. Only in 1916, when the Education Department standardised the curriculum and examinations across the Presidency, did teachers like M. V. Dhurandhar, L. N. Taskar and A. X. Trindade secure established positions in the academic hierarchy while simultaneously pursuing a range of private and commercial commissions beyond the School.

M. K. Parandekar

Untitled (Karla Caves)

Oil on Canvas

Collection: DAG
M. V. Athavale

M. V. Athavale

Untitled

Pencil on Paper

27.5 x 19.5 in./69.85 x 49.53 cm
Collection: Sir J. J. School of Art


PORTRAIT AND FIGURE STUDY

The study of live models was approached after clearing stages in copying from casts and prints. The ‘scientific’ emphasis on drawing was further entrenched by the introduction of timed drawing exercises. Abalal Rahiman’s sketch includes a note: ‘5 hours’, while another hand has evaluated it: ‘Excellent!’

Artists like M. V. ‘Bapurao’ Athavale made several nude studies after it was added to the curriculum, frequently depicting models with their backs turned. Dhurandhar, in his memoirs, would write about some of the models that frequented the School’s studios, noting how their presence often stirred considerable excitement among the male students.

N. R. Sardesai

N. R. Sardesai

Jogeshwari Caves

Watercolour on paper, 1940

9.2 X 13.2 in. / 23.4 X 33.5 cm.
Collection: DAG


OPEN AIR PAINTING

Administrators like Cecil Burns utilised study tours to encourage students to develop a more romantic sensibility in their approach to depicting landscapes. Painting architectural features and landscapes became a mainstay for several artists following study tours, exemplified by D. C. Joglekar and N. R. Sardesai, whose portrayals of the Jogeshwari Caves are on view. Graduates like S. G. ‘Pant’ Jambhlikar, renowned for his sophisticated open-air watercolours, epitomised the trajectory of several artists who learned at the School and then became influential disseminators—as Jambhlikar did in Sangli.

D. G. Karanjgaonkar and R. D. Dhopeshwarkar

D. G. Karanjgaonkar and R. D. Dhopeshwarkar

Untitled

Watercolour on paper, c. 1926

18.11 X 14.13 in. / 46.02 X 35.91 cm
Collection: Sir J. J. School of Art


THE SECRETARIAT COMMISSION

Principal Gladstone Solomon’s tireless advocacy secured a landmark achievement when the students of the school were commissioned to decorate parts of the newly built Imperial Secretariat in New Delhi. Students like R. D. Dhopeshwarkar, who spoke about his aim to synthesise realism with the distinctive Bombay Revivalist style, executed impressive murals featuring mythological and allegorical figures.

During this time, Solomon’s efforts also included a letter-writing campaign targeting dignitaries and officials across the bureaucracy and the princely states, often provocatively contrasting the School’s achievements against the output from its chief institutional rival—the art school in Calcutta.

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE SCHOOL


The history of the J. J. School today is often periodised by the tenure of its various British Principals, or landmark events like the establishment of different departments. A closer look into the world of artists like M.V. Dhurandhar, who took his role as an educator and artist in the public eye seriously, reveals his practice of ‘decades of careful self archiving’, and allows us to see the larger social world within which they lived.

Figures appear at the margins of photographs, paintings and personal testimonies, whose stories expand our notions of how students and faculty were practising art and shaping their own identities. Whether it was the influence of the cultural practices of the Pathare Prabhu community, or that of theatre, photography and cinema, we see the world outside the boundaries of the School and its curriculum through the family, friends and patrons of the artists.

M. V. Dhurandhar

Bal Gandharva

Oil on canvas pasted on board, 1941

Collection: DAG

EXPERIMENTS IN MODERNISM

For the modern to emerge, a historical accounting of past traditions was required. It provided an important stage, when Indian aesthetic traditions were approached—and eventually ‘revived’—through the rigour of an academic, reconstructed eye. Gladstone Solomon, Director of the Sir J. J. School from 1918 onwards, wrote: ‘Revivalism in art is not merely an act of nostalgia; it is a complex interplay of cultural identity and historical consciousness...’ Led by figures such as G. H. Nagarkar and J. M. Ahivasi the final decades of colonial rule saw a gathering of cultural forces that heralded the arrival of an ‘Indian’ style in western India.
Charles Gerrard, appointed Principal in 1936, is usually described as being a proponent of ‘Western’ Modernism. But as the range of works in this section demonstrates, it was not always easy to see these manoeuvres as oppositional. These divergent, and sometimes conflicting, routes would be apparent in the formation of the ‘Young Turks’ group in 1941.

Charles R. Gerrard

The Garden of the Director's Residence, the Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay

Oil on Masonite board

Collection: DAG
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Credits:


Curation and research: Ankan Kazi, Sumona Chakravarty, Shaon Basu, Shreeja Sen, Poonam Baid and Sanjana S. with Dr. Douglas John, The Sir J. J. School of Art, Architecture and Design

Research acknowledgements: Suhas Bahulkar, Partha Mitter, Ami Kantawala, Mayukh Tarapor, and Abigail McGowan

Research and curatorial advisory: Shukla Sawant, Giles Tillotson and Deepti Mulgund

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