Work of an Indian master is on exhibit PMA

visionsart — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:28:00 +0000

By Marie Fowler
Independence Day is at hand, and next month, India, too, will celebrate throwing off British rule. Rhythms of India: The Art of Nandalal Bose, on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art through the end of August, is a splendid retrospective of the work of the “Father of Modern Indian Art.”Bose (1882-1966) headed the art school at a university founded by Nobel laureate and poet Rabindranath Tagore, where he participated in Tagore’s mission to revive traditional Indian arts. British cultural standards then in vogue among the elite viewed European realist oil painting as superior to anything produced during India’s own rich
As a young man, Bose was enlisted to copy the fifth century Buddhist murals that had recently been uncovered in Ajanta. The modeling and tones of that art found its way into his work.

Bose was central to India’s drive to independence. He was the only artist enlisted by Mahatma Gandhi because both believed that India’s soul was revealed in her villages and among her common folk. Adamant about using local pigments and materials, Bose treats fisherman with the same dignity and thought as the greatest of the gods. A spirituality underlies his work – whether the subject matter is Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist or Christian.

During a Pan-Asian movement, Bose incorporated Japanese painting techniques into his oeuvre.He sketched and painted on everything from postcards to walls. Ethereal, otherworldly watercolors of Siva contrast with simple black-and-white linocuts for a children’s reader. A life-size ink-and-tempera on silk of the great hero Arjuna captivates with its sensuous line. Annapurna and the Slaying of the Buffalo Demon are incredibly intricate, rhythmic works. The Sun Temple at Konarak vibrates in an almost cubist style. Bamboo and lotuses are brushed with all the sensibility of the most accomplished Japanese aesthetic, complete with vermil-lion chop and a Bengali signature rendered vertically like Chinese calligraphy.

Regardless of technique, the sights and sounds and the life rhythms of nature in his beloved India are always at the heart of Bose’s art.

Supratik Bose, the artist’s grandson and Harvard urban planner, arrived for the Philadelphia opening, as Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art Curator Darielle Mason pointed out, “with something under his arm.” In memory of the late Museum Director Anne d’Harnoncourt and her devotion to seeing these Indian national treasures shown in Philadelphia, Bose presented the museum with a sumi-e painting of a cuckoo in banana trees, done by his grandfather in 1959. It was Supratik Bose, with the help of scholars and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi (a former student of Bose herself), who had the foresight to place Bose’s work in the National Gallery of Modern Art in New Delhi.

The late, legendary PMA Curator Kramrisch, a native of Moravia, also taught at Tagore’s university. Kramrisch, who did so much to shape the museum’s collection into the premier status it enjoys today, spent the first three months of her stay living in Nandalal Bose’s house.

Upstairs, in the museum’s William Wood Gallery, Multiple Modernities, a selection of Indian art from 1905 until 2005, puts Bose’s influence further into context. The museum’s most recent acquisition, a lithograph of Sabari with Her Birds by Atul Dodiya (b. 1959), is directly influenced by Bose’s renderings of the same subject in the current exhibition.

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Philadelphia Museum to showcase Nandalal Bose’s finest paintings

visionsart — Tue, 24 Jun 2008 08:33:00 +0000

Ashok Nag
KOLKATA: Bengal School art is going places. The first-ever exhibition of Bengal School master Nandalal Bose is about to be unveiled in the US. A show comprising nearly 100 of the finest paintings by the artist will be opened at Philadelphia Museum of Art and remain on display from end-June to the beginning of September. The exhibit is being staged by the San Diego Museum of Art in collaboration with the government of India and National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), New Delhi. “Considered to be the father of modern art in India, Bose worked to regenerate and redefine India’s art during the region’s emergence from British colonial rule and its transition to an independent nation in 1947. The paintings on display were selected from nearly 7,000 of the artist’s works, all of which are held by NGMA which were gifted to India by the artist’s family. The exhibition marks the first time survey of Bose’s artworks — that are considered to be Indian national treasures — has travelled to the United States,” Darielle Mason, Stella Kramrisch Curator of Indian and Himalayan Art, said in an email to ET from the US. Mason said: “We are delighted to present this rare retrospective that examines one of South Asia’s great 20th century artists. While Bose’s art is inextricably bound to the story of India’s national awakening and independence, it is at the same time personal and nuanced. Although, he was highly influential to a younger generation of artists, his works represent an area of modern art that has been little understood in the United States. We are particularly happy to introduce these works to a broad public in the context of this museum’s fine collections of earlier paintings and sculptures from India.” Among the exhibition’s key works is an image of Mahatma Gandhi. The striking black and white linocut Dandi March, created in 1930, depicts Gandhi on the famous 248-mile journey that he and his followers took to make salt from seawater in defiance of British colonial tax. Bose’s image is now considered as one of the most iconic portrayals of the leader.
The section devoted to Gandhi also includes seven posters that Bose created at Gandhi’s request for the 1938 Haripura Session of the Indian National Congress. Bose used local materials, including handmade paper and colours ground and mixed from the earth. “The large-scale paintings celebrate Indian village life and culture in bright colours and lively scenes. Bose’s adoption of Japanese and Chinese techniques to illustrate India’s heritage, national pride and spirituality is evident throughout the exhibition. Many of these Asian-inspired paintings evoke scenes from nature. Bose also depicted traditional Indian religious icons in modern styles,” Mason said. Some of the works of this genre, in the show, embrace Flute and Drum Players, Darjeeling and Fog, Floating a Canoe, Dolan Champa, Saraswati, Annapurna and Sati.

The post Philadelphia Museum to showcase Nandalal Bose’s finest paintings first appeared on Indian Art News.

Nandlal Bose - Indian Art News

Work of an Indian master is on exhibit PMA

Philadelphia Museum to showcase Nandalal Bose’s finest paintings