Voices Pushpesh Pant Ravi Shankar Ajai Sahni Sunaina Anand Shampa Dhar-Kamath Swami Sukhabodhananda MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment NEW DELHI February 9 2025 SUNDAY PAGES 12 Lost and Found As contemporary art rules the ongoing India Art Fair, there is also a revival for masters hitherto consigned to the ash heap of history, thanks to efforts by galleries and museums who are bringing lesser-known pages of artistic legacies to the mainstream A By Shaikh Ayaz decade back, a prominent art gallery in Delhi presented an unusual show. It focussed on one of India’s most famous political artists, Chittaprosad Bhattacharya, known for brutally documenting the ’30s and ’40s. The show was a runaway success. Here was an artist, famous during his time, but down the years, lost to time. Art aficionados and academics rediscovered him anew. Kishore Singh, Senior VP DAG, says, “India has had one , of the longest, continuous traditions of art practice. Newer practices came in and sometimes nudged out the older ones. This happened across the world.” According to him, what India lacked, however, was a sense of documentation. “Calcutta was replaced as a capital by Delhi. So the focus shifted. Bombay took over as the art capital. Artists who were earlier performing wonderfully in Calcutta, were soon replaced. Also, there was no art infrastructure to preserve their legacy Later when the . economy opened up in 1991, contemporary art became desirable for the globalised world, relegating the old names to the pages of time,” he says. Last year, things, however, changed. As KG Subramanyam, FN Souza, Ram Kumar and VS Gaitonde turned 100, the limelight also shone on their peers, who till now had been almost forgotten. The art fraternity commemorated lesser-known figures alongside the masters—a cultural shift that can be attributed to a broader and more concerted exhumation by leading Indian galleries, museums and collectors to rediscover historically forgotten artists and bring their contributions back to the mainstream. Likewise, this year the art world is going through its long-lost archives and coming up with names who may not be as famous, but who nonetheless left an indelible imprint on the art scene in India. Last year, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) hosted a blockbuster exhibition of one of India’s greatest modern artists you’ve probably never heard of. Running for over two months at their museum space in Saket, Magic in the Square celebrated the extraordinary life and times of Mohan Samant (1924-2004). Though a member of the influential Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG), Samant’s name appears to have slipped into obscurity while his contemporaries such as Souza, MF Husain and SH Raza became celebrities synonymous with modern art in post-Independent India. Magic in the Square sought to rehabilitate Samant in the public eye and as such emphasised his pioneering spirit, transcultural personality and his experimental approach to materiality which imbued his work with a palpable sense of drama and excitement. It showcased at least 20 of his striking dreamscapes that beautifully summed up his modernist vision along with a journey of his eventful life that gave birth to his artistic wonders. Influenced by everything from Egyptian hieroglyphs and Basohli miniature to Pre-Columbian ceramics, African sculpture and European modern art, he created evocative imagery that lent itself to different and fascinating interpretations. As the show demonstrated, here was a man who experimented with unconventional materials like sand, cement, plastic and bent wires, pushing the boundaries of his craft—nothing special until you realise that was a time when the art world was bound by age-old distinctions between traditional oil painting and mixed media. Samant who joined the Progressive Artists’ Group in 1952 was always something of an outlier, argues Roobina Karode, director and chief curator of the KNMA. “There is a lyrical quality to how he treated his pictorial surfaces,” she explains. Samant was an accomplished sarangi player. His music inspired his art and vice versa. Karode adds that much like an archaeologist, Samant “excavated fossilised layers, symbols and buried objects. He was drawn to civilisational myths and delved into realms of memory and magic in his multi-dimensional works”. The artist chose to settle down in New York as early as 1968. So far away from home, why would anybody in America be interested in protecting his legacy? Also something that happened to his near contemporary Avinash Chandra whose Indian identity proved to be both an advantage and a hindrance as he tried to establish himself in 1960s London. Last year in December, DAG in Mumbai presented a show on Chandra pairing him alongside Souza—with whom he had a lot in common. This has been a trend with many art institutions and galleries—bringing a forgotten gem to the audience. To coincide with Magic in the Square, KNMA also unveiled a sprawling exhibition of another unsung master, Amitava. If We Knew the Point catapulted him into the limelight, bringing him to public attention like never before. For Roobina Karode, what made the paired exhibitions of Mohan Samant and Amitava particularly compelling was that it created an unexpected, cross-generational dialogue between two artists who never directly crossed paths, giving them a well-deserved afterlife. Even though last year marked a renaissance of sorts for the 78-year-old artist with back-toback solo exhibitions in both Mumbai and Delhi, If We Knew the Point was by far the biggest. Amitava’s art draws a connection between nature and human existence even as the show’s poetic title symbolises the mystery of life and the futile attempts in decoding its meaning. The exhibition displayed over 150 works from his vast output, exploring a rich tapestry of forms, colours, textures and surfaces that evoked a spectrum of emotions. For many years, Amitava avoided the spotlight while remaining an integral part of the capital’s art circle. “Unlike others, he did not put himself out there and did not even have gallery representation until we came along,” says Shefali Somani of the Delhi-based Shrine Empire, who had hosted his solo exhibition at Bikaner House in collaboration with Art Exposure gallery in 2024. Renowned for its extensive collection of modern and premodern art, DAG is another institution that believes in honouring “the historical value of Indian art” and preserving “our artists, their continuity and legacy says CEO and ,” managing director Ashish Anand. Through its three gallery spaces in Delhi, Mumbai and New York, it has shone a Turn to page 2 Chittaprosad Bhattacharya In 2014, DAG presented an unusual show focusing on one of India’s most famous political artists, Chittaprosad Bhattacharya, known for visually documenting the ’30s and ’40s Avinash Chandra Avinash Chandra’s Indian identity proved to be both an advantage and a hindrance as he tried to establish himself in 1960s London. Last year in December, DAG in Mumbai presented a show on Chandra pairing him alongside Souza— with whom he had a lot in common Valerie Murray Chandra Anupam Sud The KNMA hosted a major survey of the Delhi-based Anupam Sud’s works in 2022. It boasted a sprawling collection of 215 paintings by Sud
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