Somnath Hore was not one to paint the blue of the skies, the glitter of the sands, or the green of the whispering trees. Instead, he captured the helpless tremble of a hand, the frail body struck by hunger, lying on the ground. In Somnath’s vision, it was the stark reality of human suffering that demanded attention.
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Bhanu Athaiya was the first woman artist to receive a gold medal from the J.J. School of Art for her work 'Lady in Repose', which was the first-ever abstract painting to be made by a member of the Progressive Artists' Group . This work which she addressed as Lying Lady in one of her handwritten letters along with The Nuns was painted as a part of her study at J.J. where Vasudeo S. Gaitonde was her mentor. In 1952, Gaitonde created the artwork 'Painting No.1' displayed at the Guggenheim Museum in New York.
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In the quest of identifying the most important new technologies transforming the art world and creative processes - we focus on artificial intelligence (AI) and non-fungible tokens (NFTs) in particular. It is essential to understand how artists are weaving in technology into their practice while various art galleries and museums rewrite the rules of an exhibit. It is further important to analyse and gauge the potential of the blockchain as a suitable ecosystem in commercial art.
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Ebrahim Alkazi and his wife Roshen Padamsee were significantly responsible for promoting many members of the Progressive Artists' Group not only in India but also at an international level. Apart from Alzaki; Mulkraj Anand, Walter Langhammer, Emmanuel Schlesinger, Rudi Von Leyden, and Kekoo Gandhy were also active as collectors.
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For ten long years, ━ I drew and painted several studies on children. This culminated in one final painting, dubbed Commander-in-Chief, complemented by oil paintings and sketches of children in myriad moods and postures in pen and ink, and in pencil. It was common practice in the olden days for eminent painters in the West to sketch or paint studies on a single subject for 20-30 years. Many of these are now celebrated artworks. Such dedication is rare indeed in painters in this country.
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The illustration and painting of the globe of ideal- the form of beauty appeared on the playground of five elements in tone a rhythmic posture by the display of harmonious posture. The awakened inner soul of mankind unifies the different sentiments by the marvelous tonal sublimation, the fine arts born in a rhythmic aptitude.
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Alongside hosting the first NFT auction (Gobardhan Ash Avatars) in India, we are also proud to announce the first-ever NFT of the iconic M.F. Husain artwork “Lightning”, an initiative by art collector and entrepreneur Kent Charugundla. This move is bound to transform art markets worldwide. The name of this initiative "LightningNFT" is inspired by Husain's historic 60-foot-long mural titled 'Lightning" made in 1975 as a backdrop to an important speech given by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. Picture Credit: https://lightningnft.io/ The work comprises twelve grand panels that spell cubism - an art form often associated with Husain. It features wild, white horses charging across a space with visual references to India in the 1970s, whilst capturing the political milieu of the new nation. The LightningNFT drop includes NFTs with 62 unique traits where each NFT depicts 12 panels with its own traits.
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Ash’s experiments in art from the 1950s are characterised as avatars; primitive artworks depicting personality traits. His paintings comprise a technique composed of a scientific arrangement of colour dots, almost pointillist. His works are impeccable character studies. Listed below are Ash's avatars up for auction and an attempt to decode the same with reference to their titles.
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Sometime in the middle of December, 1949, I met Prodosh Dasgupta, Prankrishna Pal, and Rathin Maitra at the Calcutta Photo Society at 157B, Dharamtolla Street. Prodosh happened to be a previous acquaintance. The other two gentlemen, however, I met for the first time. “Why, we’ve been looking for you. There’s something we would like to discuss,” they said.
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Art Rebel Centre, founded in 1933, was formed and led by Gobardhan Ash, Annada Dey, and Bhola Chatterjee. Subsequently, some of those invited to submit their work in exhibitions accepted membership. These include Lalit Chandra, Haridas Ganguly, Samar Dey, Amar Dasgupta, Sachin Das, Kalikinkar Ghoshdastidar, Khagen Roy, and Suren Dey, among others. Manoj Bose and Rabi Bose became members too, despite not providing paintings for exhibitions. The following is a brief history of how Art Rebel Centre came to be.
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The founders and organisers of the artist organisation, Young Artists’ Union (1931) were - Gobardhan Ash, Ananda Dey and Digin Bhattacharya. Those who were later invited to submit their artwork for the exhibition and became members by submitting their paintings include Kalikinkar Ghosh Dastidar, Suren Dey, Sachin Das, Pankaj Basu and others.
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Non Fungible Tokens are a new technology phenomenon allowing clear ownership and easy transferability of digital art which can be unique or in editions. In understanding NFT, one needs to understand digital art and perhaps the progression of the mediums on which art is painted/ executed. Since time immemorial - art has been painted on wooden panels, walls, paper, and from around the 16th century on canvas.
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The country just lost an eminent poet and a Rabindranath Tagore specialist. I had first heard of Sankha Ghosh from Raman Sivakumar at Santiniketan, who had suggested I take his help in annotating Rabindranath Tagore’s speeches from the Rathindranath Tagore estate. Annotating Rabindranath is not an easy task, there are many nuances. These speeches were written in interesting times – independence movement, internal politics in Santiniketan, impending wars, and leading up to the famous crisis of civilizations speech just before he passed away.
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Today, dedicated to whose memory we have gathered together, whose memory-hall is to be founded today; it is necessary to tell something about him. His identity for many today is not that bright.
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The only time I have seen M. F. Husain in person was at his exhibition in honour of singer M. S. Subbulakshmi at a gallery in Chennai (Madras) in 2004. Wearing no footwear, except for thick black socks, and wielding a massive paintbrush in one hand, Husain was surrounded by a group of Chennai’s socialites. I was patiently waiting behind them to meet Husain when he suddenly popped out and said, “Hello”. I was giddy with excitement and asked him to autograph the invitation card I had in my hand. He did so and quickly moved on to greet the next visitor. Husain was as excited to meet unknown gallery visitors as they were to meet him—the energy was amazing for a man who, at that time, was 91 years old. A year or so later, Husain left India, never to return.
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Pupul Jayakar had an undying passion for preserving the country's culture and weaving tradition. She was a writer and an advocate of crafts in Indian society. The textile scholar aimed to restore India's cottage weaving industry. Her interest in rural arts and crafts, her eye for potential, and her unparalleled execution skills initiated a change in many areas of craft. Jayakar singlehandedly led the revival of arts and handicrafts in India. Hence, she established The Weavers' Service Centre formerly known as the Handloom Design Centre in the 1950s.
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An intensely private artist whose artistic imagination was fuelled by the strange, dark fantasy of his grandmother’s stories and charred by the horrors of his reality, Ganesh Pyne's paintings are quiet revelations of his personality. Pyne's intricate ink works, haunting temperas, and jottings are rich in imagery and symbolism, bordering along the uncanny and drawing our attention to a world beyond the familiar. His art deeply rooted in dark, unsettling images, derived from mythology and dreams.
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I had the good fortune of spending a larger part of my life in close association with M. F. Husain. Or Uncle H, as I called him. He was more than just a friend of the family. He was part of the family. We all lived, painted, and went on vacations together. There were always the choicest of paints and canvases in the house while growing up, for which I am always thankful to him. I got to paint alongside him right from when I was 6 years old. As a child, he must have seen a unique creative spark in me. Or so he said to me in a note, written inside a book he sent me just a month before he passed away.
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At first sight, this encaustic painting – rendered in heated beeswax, into which pigments of various colours have been mixed – seems to be worlds away from what most viewers know of Bhupen Khakhar’s work. There are no limp-limbed yet curiously wide-awake men from a broad middle class; no domestic interiors laid out for erotic encounter; no playful or picaresque encounters among figures whose ordinariness is belied by some eccentric bodily feature or undecipherable gesture. No figures at all, in fact.
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An observer and painter of life, a chartered accountant occasionally picked up his paintbrush to reflect the uncanny, the fantastical, the mixed droll, and dramatic impulses quintessential to everyday life. Bhupen Khakhar (b.1934) unabashedly revealed the melancholia, mundanities, and inner monologues of the marginal man. Khakhar was born in Bombay, but the quaint town of Baroda nurtured the artist in him. An office accountant in the city of dreams, money was not the only thing Bhupen wished to draw.
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