A Tricoloured History

In an exhibition tracing the evolution of Indian art from Independence to the boom of the 90s,she juxtaposes the 1964 Raza oil Udho,the Heart is not Ten or Twenty with a Cezanne and an Indian miniature. In this way,we demonstrate the very cosmopolitan dialogical relationship between Indias modern artists and the larger world historically and geographically, says Bean.

Comprising 70 works by 23 artists,the Massachusetts exhibition titled Midnight to the Boom: Painting in India after Independence borrows from the Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection to analyse Indias art movement over the decades through the work of three generation of painters. If the section titled Pathbreakers comprises artists working around Independence,Midnights Children features the subsequent generation and New Mediators includes those who came to the forefront in the 80s and 90s. The generational grouping enables viewers to see shifts in approaches and painterly concerns over nearly five decades, says Bean.

There has been an attempt to select works of different artists to give viewers an opportunity to get a sense of the individual approaches to art. So,among the earliest works,there is a MF Husain 1950 oil-on-canvas,Peasant Couple. There is also his Lightning Horses,painted years later in 1979. The oil has been juxtaposed with veteran Chinese artist Xu Beihongs 1943 ink on paper Horse. Bean recalls that Husain first met Beihong in 1951,while travelling to Beijing. Struck by the exquisite grace and vitality of his horses,Husain returned to his study of horses,pushing his work in a new direction. These juxtapositions reveal the cosmopolitanism of Indias art movement by showing very specific ways that artists connected with art from around the world and across time,8221; says Bean. The aim led her to draw six such parallels. Apart from comparing Raza with Cezanne and Husain with Beihong,she has also considered Bikash Bhattacharjees 1986 The Lady with the Gas Cylinder alongside Andrew Wyeths 1937 Charlie Ervine. An avid collector of books on Wyeth,Bhattacharjee explored the American artists brush techniques and interplay between light and shade.

However,it isnt just this correlation between the west and the east that defines the exhibition what it presents is the story of Indian art through a collection that is among the largest caches of contemporary Indian art,acquired by the US-based couple Chester and Davida Herwitz over a period of three decades,since the 1960s when they first visited India. They believed the art being produced in India constituted one of the most exciting modern movements in the world, says Bean. When she was sifting through their collection of 1,200 works of more than 70 Indian artists,she too made an attempt to reflect the reality of an interconnected global art world,and the way non-Western artists have participated in art movements at home,and as part of the worlds art history. She talks of how the jagged diagonals often used by Tyeb Mehta to break the scene on his canvas were not just compositional devices but an outcome of the line drawn between India and Pakistan post-Partition. Nasreen Mohamedis drawings represent architectural abstractions and diagonal forms that might describe colonised inhabitants who had become more vigilant. The generation to come was to challenge media if Atul Dodiyas The Flood in Dhaka is painted on commercial shutter,Ranbir Kaleka brings together canvas painting and video art. At one point,there were set notions about Indian art but that perception is changing now, says Bean.

Curators Picks

Susan Bean selects works that represent the evolution of Indian art since Independence

Tyeb Mehta,Untitled diagonal,1973

These works exemplify,despite their clear individual visions and concerns,a common preoccupation with seeking new approaches to painting that privilege form and colour which some of them referred to as colour-form and their consequent emphasis on the language of painting.

Arpita Singh8217;s Munna Apa,Morning,and a Seated Man,1989

These works of the next generation of artists exemplify a post-Nehruvian turn towards their own lives and the experiences of those around them,and a preoccupation with exploring the narrative potential of the picture space.

New Mediators: Artists who gained stature in the 80s and 90s

In the third generation,coming up in the late 80s and early 90s,a strong impulse to push beyond the confines of the painting emerges in different ways. For example,Rekha Rodwittiyas 1986 work How Naked Shall I Stand For You targets the viewer with a strong feminist stance. Atul Dodiyas The Bombay Buccaneer literally breaks the frame with the film slapstick,making it impossible to put a picture frame on the painting,and foreshadows,for example,his series of shop-shutter paintings. Artists of this generation,including Nalini Malani and Ranbir Kaleka also pioneer forays into lens-based media often blended with painting.