The first public walkthrough of Epochal: The Period of Pioneers, a joint exhibition by Chatterjee & Lal and DAG in Mumbai, was packed to the rafters last month. Around 250 people turned up on a hot Saturday afternoon to see this showcase of modernists such as K.S. Kulkarni, Benode Behari Mukherjee, J. Swaminathan, B. Prabha, and A.A. Raiba. Epochal establishes oftoverlooked connections between artistic practices and the sociopolitical landscape of the times.
It took Mortimer Chatterjee, curator of the exhibition and director of Chatterjee & Lal, one-and-a-half years to put together this project spanning 118 paintings from 1877 to the late 1980s. The focus, however, is on works created immediately after independence—1948 to the 1960s. “Rather than presenting artistic practices in isolation, the exhibition foregrounds relationships across geographies, mediums and ideas that informed their (modernists’) work,” says Ashish Anand, CEO and managing director of DAG. By bringing together these intersecting trajectories, the exhibition offers a more layered understanding of modern Indian art, highlighting how collaboration was central during this period.
The exhibition features rare textile works and drawings by artist K.G. Subramanyan, created during his stint at the Weavers’ Service Centre, Mumbai, between 1959-61. These are mostly textile works with hemp. After two years, he returned to the faculty of fine arts at Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda—where he had taught since 1951— continuing his engagement with textiles. He also made murals, sand-casts, toys and illustrations.
Also on display are works created before independence to add context to the art landscape before the arrival of modernism. M.V. Dhurandhar’s At Chowpatty Beach (Mumbai) is one such example. The artist, who studied at the Sir J.J. School of Arts, later apprenticed at Raja Ravi Varma’s printmaking press. In this painting, some of the figures clearly pay homage to the latter. Take, for instance, a woman talking to a street vendor, or her companion in white, which seem like odes to Varma’s Shakuntala and Women in Kasavu series. “Dhurandhar uses that apprenticeship both within a fine arts capacity and in design practice as well,” says Chatterjee.
Epochal has been structured as three chapters: inheritance, object, and the social and the political. The first segment engages with the afterlives of pre-modern, colonial, and early modern visual traditions, examining how these were reworked, contested or reclaimed in the mid-20th century. “It considers how artists positioned themselves in relation to inherited frameworks of practice, pedagogy and representation,” says Chatterjee.
“Inheritance” creates connections between the murals of Ajanta caves and the art of the early modernists. Around the 1870s, the murals and frescoes were introduced in the syllabus of Sir J.J. School of Art, becoming important references for artists from the Bombay Revivalist Group established in the early 1920s. The group aspired to create a distinct Indian identity by blending traditional aesthetics with academic realism. The school was headed by J.M. Ahivasi (1901–73), who came to Mumbai from Varanasi and was trained in the miniature tradition. Artist B. Prabha also a student at the institution, was influenced by the Bombay Revivalist movement of painting, which stylistically remained a core aspect of her practice well into the 1960s and beyond. One can see that influence in her sketches of fisherwomen, dated 1969, in the exhibition.
The second chapter focuses on how artists grappled with material, medium and process. “These explorations are understood not merely as technical exercises but as central to redefining the repertoire of artistic practice and production in response to the cultural and historical conditions of the time,” says Chatterjee. In this context, the highlight includes the glazed ceramics of Dasharath Patel (1927- 2010). The artist worked at the Bhulabhai Memorial Institute in Breach Candy, Mumbai, where artists such as M.F. Husain, Tyeb Mehta along with musicians and poets congregated, and where crosscollaboration was encouraged.
The third chapter concerns itself with the increasing engagement of artists with questions of identity and politics.“A single artist’s practice often traverses all three chapters, particularly when viewed through the overlapping axis of art school and studio,” says Chatterjee. Many works on display tell several interlaced stories. There is a rare batik work by K. Ramanujam, a key member of the Madras Art Movement, which was commissioned by artist and teacher K.C.S. Paniker. One of Homi Patel’s untitled paintings made in the 1970s is in conversation with the larger concerns of the neotantric movement. “I sometimes feel that we’ve been illserved as an ecosystem as to the resonances of that period,” says Chatterjee. “What we’re trying to do in this exhibition is to talk about a more nuanced history, which was many artists working together in and out of each other’s orbits.”
The exhibition continues until early June.
Riddhi Doshi is Mumbai-based art, culture, travel and lifestyle writer.