Works of the best of India's modern artists on display

Rich Ensemble

Artworks by 75 of the country's acknowledged artists spanning over a century of Indian modernism across various periods, movements, mediums, materials and regions are now on showcase here.

The 11th edition of Delhi Art Gallery’s biannual series ‘Manifestations XI’ brings together modern art spread across the genres of mythology, landscape and still-life, figurative, narrative and abstract.

The show, which opened in Mumbai, is now on in the city till November 15 and features works by the Progressives, M F Husain, S H Raza, Ram Kumar, G R Santosh.

Accompanying is a heavy catalogue detailing the works of all the artists as well as Rare sepia tinted photographs of artists at different periods of time.“These rare pictures reflect the cultural construct of our times,” says Ashish Anand, Director, DAG in a preface.

He poses the question as to what did the masters talk about when they got together as collectives or groups.

“What must they have talked of? Or shared? Was there only conviviality or also competition? What were the circumstances of their life and how did they manage opinion at a time when art could hardly have been taken seriously as a profession,” points out Anand.

A group picture of the early modernists from Shantiniketan displays Nandlal Bose, one of the pioneers of modern Indian art, who served as the principal of Kala Bhavan in Shantiniketan. Bose is photographed surrounded by a group of fellow artists which includes Ramkinkar Baij and Benode Bihari Mukherjee.

Another photograph showcases the Progressive artists F N Souza, S H Raza and Akbar Padamsee in Paris in the early 1960s followed by a picture of the Indian modernists Bal Chhabda, Tyeb Mehta, Krishen Khanna, S H Raza and M F Husain in the later years.

An exuberant group of the society of contemporary artists Calcutta formed in the 1963 showcases Sunil Das, Pranab Ranjan Ray, Shyamal Dutta Ray, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Dhiraj Choudhary, Faneah Haloi, and Lalu Prasad Shaw.

Gulammohammed Sheikh, Himmat Shah, J Swaminathan and Ambadas from the members of the Group 1890 photographed at Bhavnagar, Gujarat in 1962 along with a picture of the group in 1963 has been featured.

Works by M Senapathi K C S Panicker and J Sultan Ali from the Cholamandel artists’ village collective “consumed with the challenge of finding an Indian response to the sort of art that was coming out of the West,” are included in  the exhibition.