Why Jamini Roy's Visual Language was Truly Avant-Garde This discussion examines Jamini’s invented language (of modernism) and what makes him a creative genius. This examines his crucial contribution to Modernism in India / the beginnings of true modernism in India.
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There was a time when Amal Chandra Home Ray, known to peers as simply Amal Home, was a name familiar to Bengal’s cultural, literary, and political elite. Described by writer Nirad C. Chaudhuri as a “showman, an impresario,”[1] Amal was an elegant, erudite, complex figure whose legacy today lives on in scattered memories, faded photographs, and the quiet efforts of his daughter, Amalina Dutta, to restore him to public memory.
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If one were to visit Lalitha Lajmi’s home in her later years, one would find a space that quietly mirrored the artist herself. The walls were defining spaces in Lajmi's living room that spoke volumes about her creative personality. On the round table, a half-painted watercolour waited patiently, flanked by brushes and metal cups, its silent companions in the long hours of her nocturnal practice.
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The next chapter in the multi-part auction series of The Estate of Sir Mangaldas Nathubhai turns to the interiors of 1930s Bombay — a city at the height of its Art Deco transformation. As cinemas, apartment blocks, and seafront promenades rose along Marine Drive and Colaba, this new design language entered Bombay’s homes. Within the Mangaldas family residences at Girgaum, Malabar Hill, and later Commonwealth, these cabinets, wardrobes, and vanities reflected the same spirit of progress, precision, and elegance that defined the era.
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Few artists in India's modern history have lived a life as inspiring as Satish Gujral's. Losing his hearing at a very tender age, he transformed silence into creative expression. A student of both the Mayo School of Art in Lahore and the Sir J.J School of Art in Bombay, Satish Gujral's creative journey spanned painting, sculpture, mural and even architecture.
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To be precise my garden is currently two flower pots but as any other Oval Maidan (Mumbai) or Central Park (NY) facing resident would say – the entire oval (park) is my garden!
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The third chapter in the multi-part auction series of the Estate of Sir Mangaldas Nathubhai turns to the shelves of his Girgaum and Malabar Hill homes — the quiet centre of a cultivated Bombay life. Known to the city as a philanthropist and reformer, Sir Mangaldas was also a deliberate collector — one who read about what he acquired. His library was a place of study as much as of leisure: Hamlet beside The Grammar of Ornament, scripture beside travelogues, manuals of craft beside memoirs of empire.
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From the humble lanes of Beliatore to the grand pages of Indian art history, Jamini Roy's life was a journey of artistic awakening. His artistic journey, deeply rooted in Bengal's folk traditions, reflects a bold departure from the Western academic styles. The following timeline translated from the Bengali text Jamini Roy: Jibonpanji, written by Debasish Mukhopadhyay, presents a chronological account of his life, education, and major achievements.
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If the porcelain of the previous chapter revealed Sir Mangaldas Nathubhai’s eye for refinement, the timepieces and sculptural treasures in the family capture the rhythm and sentiment of his world. Within the family homes at Girgaum, Malabar Hill, and later Commonwealth, these pieces measured the passing of hours and reflected the family’s cosmopolitan curiosity. Passed down and faithfully wound through four generations, they speak of precision, devotion, and inherited grace.
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Bhanu Athaiya often described herself simply as “a painter who came to cinema.” She carried the discipline of her art training into every film she worked on, treating costume as an extension of character. Actresses who worked with her — from Waheeda Rehman to Zeenat Aman — remembered how she would sit with them, discuss each scene, and ensure that they felt completely at ease. Rekha called her “a mentor, creative guide, and friend,” [1] while Meena Kumari’s first words to her on the set of Sahib Bibi aur Ghulam were, “Bhanu, take care of me.” [2] That instinct — to listen, to understand, and to protect — would come to define her feminist practice.
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When a retrospective of Jamini Roy opened in Bombay in 1980, art historian Yashodhara Dalmia wrote in The Times of India about his lifelong search for an authentic Indian form, deeming him the ‘first contemporary painter’. Moving away from academic realism, Roy drew on Bengal’s folk and tribal traditions to create a new visual language that was both modern and rooted in shared cultural sensibility.
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Among the many treasures preserved in the Sir Mangaldas Nathubhai family collection is a slim, timeworn album belonging to his great-granddaughter Meenal. Its pages, still intact after a century, neatly inscribed with signatures and photographs, carry the imprints of cricketing legends from the early decades of the twentieth century.
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Walk through Bombay’s old neighbourhoods and you will still find elephants in stone. At Lamington Road and in Kalbadevi, they guard the façades of two of the city’s most storied theatres — Imperial and Bhangwadi. To most passersby, they are striking ornaments. In truth, they are the emblem of Sir Mangaldas Nathubhai and his family, whose motto “Wisdom over Riches” guided a life of philanthropy and civic reform in nineteenth-century Bombay.
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The porcelains that once gleamed in Sir Mangaldas Nathubhai’s family homes reveal his lesser-known side as a deliberate collector. Now offered to the public for the first time, the Estate takes us back to 19th-century Bombay, when his Malabar Hill mansion stood as a social landmark. Within its halls, his studied collections—porcelain foremost among them, alongside books, clocks, and silverware—were displayed and admired by the city’s elite.
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Sir Mangaldas Nathubhai was one of the most dedicated reformers and philanthropists of nineteenth-century Bombay. Among the earliest Indians knighted by the British Crown for his service to education, healthcare, and civic reform, his legacy stands apart. More than a prosperous merchant, he belonged to the circle of Bombay’s emerging intelligentsia and played a significant role in the city’s wider social and political awakening.
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Jamini Roy and Gao Jianfu's Overlooked Collaboration This research note is about Gao Jianfu, the founding member of the Lingnan School of art, his travel to India, and a hitherto undocumented collaboration / influence with Jamini Roy.
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Xu Beihong, Jamini Roy, and a Possible Crossroad of Indian & Chinese Modernism The title of this note requires some explanation. Xu Beihong (Ju Peon) is widely regarded as the father of Chinese Modernism, while Jamini Roy is known as the father of Indian Modernism. (12) The works under discussion come from the estate of Jamini Roy, yet are believed to be by Xu Beihong, hence the framing as a “Tale of Two Fathers.”
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Tucked away from the bustle of colonial Kolkata, Bolpur’s red-earth landscape became home to Santiniketan in 1863, when Maharshi Devendranath Tagore purchased the land and established a spiritual retreat he named the “Abode of Peace.”
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Hailed as the father of modern Chinese painting, Xu Beihong’s vast oeuvre reflects a rich confluence of cultural influences absorbed during his travels. Among these sojourns, Xu’s spirit of cultural fusion found new ground in 1939, when he was appointed the first Chinese visiting professor at Rabindranath Tagore’s Visva-Bharati University in Santiniketan, West Bengal.
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In the ever-evolving landscape of modern Indian art, few names evoke the quiet strength and earthy lyricism of rural Bengal like Sunil Madhav Sen (1910-1979). A pioneer who chose brush over gravel, Sunil Madhav Sen’s journey from Law to the heart of India’s modernist movement is a testament to the power of personal calling.
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