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Somnath Hore: the artivist

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.

Gobardhan Ash: the quiet master artist

A silent, dedicated artist content amidst the walls of paintings stacked in his Begampur mud house stirred a quiet revolution against the preconceived notions of artistic expression. No wonder Gobardhan Ash (b.1907) carved a niche for himself as an individualistic artist who fearlessly explored diverse artistic styles and techniques.

Art Deco

Art Deco is an opulent and alluring visual arts design style that unfolded in the 1920s in France. It burgeoned internationally in the early 1940s. This style still has a boundless influence on everything from architecture to sculpture, interiors to jewelry, furniture to car design.

Bhanu Athaiya: The Oscar Winning Designer

Bhanu Athaiya achieved a lot over a period of six decades - the only woman member of the Progressive Artists Group and the first Indian to win an Oscar.

Bhanu Athaiya: The Oscar Winning Designer

Four Indian Modernist Sculptures

At Prinseps' Modern and Contemporary Art Sale on November 17th, we find immense joy in presenting, from the late modern era, four exquisite works by four master craftsmen: Akbar Padamsee, Dhanraj Bhagat, Sankho Chaudhuri, and Amarnath Sehgal.

Somnath Hore: Form & Figuration

Somnath Hore was born in 1921 in Chittagong studied at the Government College of Art in Calcutta. He witnessed the chain of devastation left by the Japanese bombing raid on Chittagong which was followed by a man made famine in 1943. Such suffering deeply impacted Hore and led him to outpour in sketches and poster drawing, which documented the devastation.

Jamini Roy's : Sculpture Sketch

Jamini Roy’s inspiration for folk art led him to experiment with sculpture along with paintings and sketches even though he had no formal sculpture training. This artwork depicts a preparatory sketch of three sculptures similar to crude dolls from folk art.

Sculptures : It’s All Greek to Me!

Alexander the Great can be said to be responsible for the Greek influence in Ancient India. He started to conquer kingdoms in the east and made it all the way to modern Pakistan and the Indian state of Gujarat. He turned back once he was defeated by King Porus in 326 BCE.

Expression of Pain : Somnath Hore

Somnath Hore was one of the most prominent political artists and activists of post-independence India. His affiliation with the Communist Party at an early age strongly influenced his artistic ideologies and methods of art practice. However, his career as a student of art and later as an art practitioner was unlike his contemporaries.

K.G. Subramanyan (1924-2016): An Overview

K.G. Subramanyan’s artistic oeuvre reflects the synthesized modernism in post-independence India, that was devised to accommodate the varied Indian artistic aesthetics and history as a continuation of cultural pursuits.

K.G. Subramanyan (1924-2016): An Overview

Prodosh Dasgupta (1912-1991)

Prodosh Dasgupta was a crucial figure of that mid-20th century generation of artists in Bengal who were giving shape to a new vocabulary of modernism in Indian art. His role was particularly important in defining a distinct place for modernism in Indian sculpture, in advocating the concept of form as an independent identity in sculpture, and in pioneering a style of semi-abstract three-dimensional figuration.

Sankho Chowdhury (1916 – 2006)

Sankho Chowdhury was one of the formative influences in the changing horizon of modern Indian sculpture.

Understanding Indian Sculpture

Sculptures are increasingly becoming popular investment grade collectables. In some modern South Asian art auctions at the end of 2018 Sadanand Bakre, Prodosh Dasgupta and Adi Davierwala sculptures were sold for record-breaking prices. To appreciate modern sculpture it is important to understand the origins of classical Indian sculpture.

An Anish Kapoor - Oh My Gourd!

Anish Kapoor's biomorphic sculptures support his Hindu beliefs of a sexualised cosmos.

Somnath Hore(1921 - 2006) Overview

"Man's history is waiting in patience for the triumph of the insulted man,Triumph he had, but at a terrible price. With the subcontinent at war, and the new-born land still wracked by bone-shattering poverty, the joy in Bangladesh was necessarily tempered by sorrow.” - Rabindranath Tagore)

Misreading Dhanraj Bhagat's Durga

Dhanraj Bhagat, a master sculptor and Padma Shri recipient, was active in Delhi during the mid-1940s to the 1960s. Two of his sculptures (Reunion-1947 and Three Women-1953) are listed as belonging to the collection of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.