Results for "progressive artists group"

Who Was Hari Ambadas Gade? Progressive Artists’ Group Painter and Indian Modernist Explained

A founding member of the Progressive Artists’ Group and one of the first Indian modernists to incorporate abstract expressionism into their artworks post-independence, Hari Ambadas Gade is known for his abstract landscape compositions and vibrant colour palette. Working against the dominance of western academic realism under the British Raj, he developed a vivid, structurally driven visual language that remains singular within modern Indian art. 

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Who Was Hari Ambadas Gade? Progressive Artists’ Group Painter and Indian Modernist Explained

Prabhakar Barwe - His Language and Motifs

Investigating Prabhakar Barwe

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Prabhakar Barwe - His Language and Motifs

The Battle of Hyderabad by George Jones RA? A Newly Discovered Version Under Study

A sweeping battlefield unfolds across the canvas, the vast sky painted a dull orange. At the centre stands General Sir Charles Napier on an elevated ground, surrounded by the Queen’s 22nd Regiment. The terrain breaks into dry riverbeds and trenches hurling haunting sounds of intense combat. A fraction of the troops continue to press forward through the uneven landscape while another navigates a distant plain. 

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The Battle of Hyderabad by George Jones RA? A Newly Discovered Version Under Study

A portrait of Annasaheb Rajopadhye's mother

In Kolhapur, often called Kalapur, a city of the arts, artistic and cultural activity flourished in the early twentieth century, with artists such as M. V. Dhurandhar, Abalal Rahiman, and Baburao Painter shaping its cultural life, as modern visual technologies such as painting, photography, and cinema took root in the state.

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A portrait of Annasaheb Rajopadhye's mother

Leathercraft at Santiniketan

Leatherwork in Santiniketan originated from a broader movement to revive the traditional crafts of rural Bengal and reintroduce skilled occupations to village life. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Rabindranath Tagore turned his attention to the villages surrounding Santiniketan and began to organise a programme of rural reconstruction that placed work, skill, and livelihood at the centre of education. In the early 1920s, at Sriniketan, he established a rural reconstruction centre where agriculture and village industries were developed as regular institutional activity. Craft entered this programme as part of daily labour. Weaving, carpentry, pottery, dyeing, and leatherwork were taught alongside cultivation and rural service, and workshops became working spaces where students and village artisans learned trades. Speaking about the purpose of this effort, Rabindranath expressed the principle that guided the work: "The drama of national self-expression could not be real if rural India were banished."Within this programme, leatherwork was developed through the initiative of Rathindranath Tagore. In 1928, during his stay in England, he began studying leatherwork and developed a lasting interest in the craft. After returning to Santiniketan later that year, he introduced leatherwork to students and continued to practise it within the training system at Sriniketan. In 1930, after formal vocational instruction in Europe with Pratima Devi, he established a regular leather workshop at Silpa Sadan. Ink and Embossing on Leather by RathindranathTagore From 1932, the workshop produced a growing range of leather goods—handbags, book covers, portfolios, trays, and domestic objects—made from vegetable-tanned goat and sheepskin and decorated through embossing, stencil work, and batik techniques. These objects soon appeared in exhibitions and institutional displays, carrying the name Santiniketan and establishing a recognizable tradition of leather craftsmanship rooted in the revival of rural craft. 

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Leathercraft at Santiniketan

Calcutta and the Lost Story of Modern Indian Art

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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Calcutta and the Lost Story of Modern Indian Art

Saraswati in Two Artistic Worlds: Sunayani Devi and Baburao Painter

When the Orientalist William Jones wrote his hymn to Saraswati in the late eighteenth century, he described the goddess as the “patroness of fine arts, especially of Musick and Rhetorick. (archaic)” Reflecting on the poetic tradition surrounding her, Jones remarked that it evokes the Ragmala—the “Necklace of Musical Modes,” which he called “the most beautiful union of Painting with poetical Mythology and the genuine theory of Musick.” [1] His observation captures something essential about Saraswati’s place in Indian culture: she belongs at once to music, language, and the visual arts.

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Saraswati in Two Artistic Worlds: Sunayani Devi and Baburao Painter

Bhanu Athaiya's Feminist Vision

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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Bhanu Athaiya's Feminist Vision

Marie-Louise Chassany: The Artist and the Muse

Marie-Louise Chassany (Chassagny) was a French painter in the Paris art circles of the early 1930s and, for many around her, a muse. She shared a studio with Amrita Sher-Gil in Montparnasse and became a compelling presence within that artistic milieu. Tall and slender, “like a Giacometti,” [1] as one contemporary recalled, she carried an enigmatic air that drew the attention of the painters around her. Yet Chassany was not merely an inspiration for others. She was herself an artist whose work Sher-Gil admired, once likening it to the strange sensitivity of early Pablo Picasso alongside the intensity of Chaïm Soutine.

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Marie-Louise Chassany: The Artist and the Muse

Nandalal Bose’s Radha Krishna: An Epitome of the Bengal School

Radha and Krishna have appeared in Indian painting for centuries, their story retold across manuscript illustration, temple painting, and courtly miniature traditions. In the early twentieth century, the Bengal School sought to reshape the language of modern Indian painting. Instead of following the heavily modelled realism taught in colonial art schools, its artists turned to earlier Indian traditions—Ajanta murals, sculpture, and miniature painting—for inspiration. 

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Nandalal Bose’s Radha Krishna: An Epitome of the Bengal School
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