Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Institute (BDMI) was a nerve centre for artist practise, for innumerable artists of diverse fields and practise. Institute with the same structure and bohemian style has never been established again, giving rise to various experiments, collaborations and discussions. The impact of the atmosphere created at the BDMI has touched the practise of artists visiting the space for various reasons.The following chapters bear dialogues and synergies that occurred at BDMI. It will shed light on life at BDMI. We can view the distinct sides and views of the same tale narrated by individuals. An effort of collecting as many dialogues and incidents from many biographies, autobiographies, interviews and books that have recorded the life and time at the Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Institute, to bring them too light for the reader to understand the ripples the institute created in the Indian art scene.

In reading about the Bhulabhai Desai Institute, one can acquaint themselves with a few historically important personalities who supported contemporary Indian art in the 1950s and 1960s by nurturing talent and providing an international stage and platform for many of them.

Somnath Hore's pictorial language in his sketches, sculptures, and prints is more often a reaction to one of the major crises that hit Bengal in the 20th century. Here we focus on his printmaking.  

Abstraction refers to non-representational art, Figurative art refers to something with reality - both definitions are broad and have to be in fact, as otherwise, it would be seemingly impossible to categorize many artworks. What's the connection between these definitions with Vasudeo Santo Gaitonde's art? The connection becomes clear thanks to a recent exhibit at the Prince of Wales Museum (now called Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalay).

Peggy Guggenheim was born in 1898 in New York. Her father, Benjamin Guggenheim, and uncle, Solomon R. Guggenheim were power brokers. The family’s fortune came from mining and smelting industries.

A portfolio of original photographs from Santiniketan and the life and social norms present in the campus from the '40s and '50s. The photographs Mahatma Gandhi's visit to Santiniketan.

My earliest memories are swathed in the scent of mountain pines and a constant leitmotif of a rattling train that would carry me back to our home in Dehradun named Mitali on Rajpur Road – my magical El Dorado – where I spent my childhood with my mother, Meera ma, my maternal grandmother, Lal dida, and my Jethu and foster father, Rathindranath (Tagore).

The freedom struggle in India saw a lot of posters made by Indians to unite the masses to oppose the British Raj. These posters or prints were often considered to be seditious material and were confiscated by the British.

The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi took roughly 40 years to be compiled and spans from 1884 to 1948 when Gandhi was assassinated. The collection includes Gandhi’s writings, letters, essays, notes, and interviews. The collection goes into great detail over 100 volumes about the time when Indian was under British rule and was fighting for independence.

Man Ray was born Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on 27th August 1890. Not only was he one of the most crucial figures in the radical Dadaist and Surrealist movements, but his subject matter even included the monumental figures of Pablo Picasso, James Joyce, Gertrude Stein, and Salvador Dali.