ARTIST BIOGRAPHIES
MAQBOOL FIDA HUSAIN
Born 1915, Pandharpur, Maharashtra, India
Lives and works between Dubai and London.
M. F. Husain is the most recognised figure of modern and contemporary Indian art; he joined the Progressives Artists Group in 1948. A self-taught artist, Husain moved to Mumbai at an early age and began his artistic career by painting the billboards for cinemas. He recalls, "We were paid barely four or six annas per square foot. That is, for a 6x10 feet canvas, we earned a few rupees. And apart from the New Theatre distributor, the others did not pay us at all. As soon as I earned a little bit I used to take off for Surat, Baroda and Ahmedabad to paint landscapes".
His first exhibition took place in 1947 with his painting Sunhera Sansaar, shown at the annual exhibition of the Bombay Art Society and Husain decided to stay in India during the Partition in 1947. Between 1948 – 1950, Husain's work caught the public eye in a series of exhibitions across India and through the fifties and sixties, he traveled outside India, with his first foray into China in 1951. The following year he had his first solo exhibition in Zurich and so began a series of exhibitions across Europe and the United States. In 1966, the Government of India awarded him the Padmashree.
Over the following decades, Husain's fame spread and was glorified by what was deemed to be a rather controversial approach to his art. His Shwetambari exhibition at the Jehangir Art Gallery consisted of two halls shrouded in white cloth, whorls of which also shared the floor with torn newspapers. Later, he gave a public performance at the Tata Center in Calcutta. For several days a crowd watched as he painted pictures of six goddesses. On the last day of the exhibition he destroyed his paintings by overpainting them in white. Several of his paintings in the nineties were named after the film actress Madhuri Dixit, perhaps displaying a childhood obsession that goes back to the time of painting billboards. As reported in the Times of India, "the Padma Vibhushan awardee continues to paint events that are topmost on contemporary minds, be it the solar eclipse, the cricket mania or the victory at Kargil".
Themes in Husain's work have repeatedly returned to his cultural roots, but he has embraced diverse influences, be that the cinematography of Buñuel to themes that have blended folk, tribal and mythological figures to create vibrantly contemporary, living art forms in his work. Icons of Indian culture through the ages seek to capture the quintessence of his subjects, like Mother Teresa, Krishna and the goddess Saraswati. Besides painting, he has also made feature films, including "Through the Eyes of a Painter" in 1966, which won the Golden Bear Award winner at the Berlin Film Festival (1967), and "Gaja Gamini" in 2000. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Bhushan and the Padma Vibhushan awards, both prestigious civilian awards.
Select Solo and Group Exhibitions
2008 Winter Moderns, an exhibit of five senior modern Indian artists - M.F. Husain,
F.N. Souza, Shyamal Dutta Ray Satish Gujral and B. Prabha, Aicon Gallery,
New York
2008 Winter Moderns, exhibit of senior Indian modern masters, Aicon gallery,
London
2007 From the Vault, Aicon Gallery, London and New York
Epic India: Paintings by M F Husain, Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts, USA
2006 M F Husain: Early Masterpieces 1950s-70s, Asia House, London, UK
The Moderns Revisited, Grosvenor Vadehra, London, UK
2005 Ashta Nayak: Eight Pioneers of Indian Art, Gallery ArtsIndia, New York
2000 New Works, The Fine Art Resource, Berlin
1995 Inaugural Exhibition; River of Art, Art Today, New Delhi
1991 National Exposition of Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai
1988 Takoka Municipal Museum of Art & Meugro Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan
1987 Coups de Coeur, Halles de I'lle, Geneva, Switzerland
1986 Indian Art Today, The Philips Collection, Washington D.C.
Contemporary Indian Art, Grey Art Gallery, New York.
1986 Sista's Art Gallery, Kala Yatra, Bangalore
1985 100 Jahre Indische Malerei, Altes Museum, Berlin
1982 Modern Indian Painting, Hirshhorn Museum, Washington,DC.
Contemporary Indian Art, Festival of India, Royal Academy of Art, London
India: Myth and Reality: Aspect of Contemporary Indian Art, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK
Six Indian Painters, Tate Gallery, London
Indische Kunst Heute, Kunsthalle Darmstadt
1973 Retrospective Exhibition, Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Calcutta
1971 São Paulo Biennale, Brazil
1970 Art Today -II, Asoka Art Gallery, Calcutta
1969 21 Years of Painting , Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
1966 Art Now in India, Newcastle, England and Ghent, Belgium
Commonwealth Art Exhibition, London
Oberoi International Hotel, New Delhi
1965 Exhibitions in Baghdad and Kabul
1960 Tokyo Biennale, Japan
Frankfurter Kunstkabinett, organized by Hanna Bekker vom Rath
Exhibition in Rome
1959 São Paulo Biennale, Brazil. Also 1971 as special invitee together with Pablo Picasso
1958 Eight Painters, International Culture Centre, New Delhi
1956 Zurich and Prague
1955 National Exhibition, Rabindra Bhavan, Lalit Kala Akademi
Venice Biennale, Italy
1953 Indische Kunst, Rautenstrauch- Joest –Museum, Cologne
Venice Biennale, Italy
1952 Zurich
1951 Salon de Mai, Paris
1950 Bombay Art Society's Salon, Bombay
1948–56 Group Exhibitions with PAG (Progressive Artists Group)
Films
2004 Meenaxi: Tale of 3 Cities (Director and Writer)
2000 Gaja Gamini (Director, Writer, Actor)
Fiza (Thanks, as M F Husain)
1997 Mohabbat (Actor, as Himself)
1991 Henna (Art Department/Paintings: a tribute to Raj Kapoor, depicting "Henna" in line and color)
1966 Through the Eyes of a Painter (Director and Writer)
Awards
2004 Lalit Kala Ratna, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
1967 Awarded the Golden Berlin Bear for short film 'Through the Eyes of a Painter' (produced 1966 Berlin International Film Festival, Germany
1966 Awarded Padma Shree and Padma Bhushan, Govt. of India.
Husain has received Honorary Doctorates from the following:
Benaras Hindu University
Jamia Millia Islamia
Mysore University
B. PRABHA
Graduated from the Sir J.J. School of Art in Mumbai
B. Prabha has, on her canvases, immortalized the fisherwomen of Mumbai. Her representation of these simple, rustic women with their distinctive hairstyles and bright saris is characteristic of her style.
Her first works were modern, freely rendered paintings. Her marriage to fellow artist, B.Vithal, in 1956, changed her perspective and she began to develop what was to become her signature style. She began to experiment and moved from modern abstract forms to more decorative watercolors. She held her first joint exhibition with her husband in the same year. Two years later, the works exhibited at the Bombay State Art Exhibition, saw B. Prabha making her mark in the world of art, and the start of a long and successful career.
B. Prabha's exploration of new media, styles and subjects continued unabated. Her paintings cover a wide range of subjects, from landscapes to social issues like droughts, hunger and homelessness. In time, her need for simplicity drew her to oils. Using this medium, she developed an elegant, formal style that remains her trademark to this day.
B. Prabha passed away in September 2001.
GEORGE KEYT
Born 1901, in Sri Lanka
Died 1993, in Colombo
Trinity College (Kandy)
Born in Sri Lanka in 1901, Keyt started exhibiting in the 1920's. His work from this period was strongly influenced by Buddhist and Hindu iconography. The 1930's saw a transition with the depiction of episodes from the Buddhist Jataka or Birth Stories, culminating in the representation of the life and times of the Buddha on the walls of the circumambulatory shrine room of Gautami Vihara in Borella in 1940. At the same time, he was also exposed to the influence of Western art, in particular the early cubist landscapes of Picasso and Braque, as well as Picasso's distortion of the human figure. It was Keyt's unique achievement to fuse these influences into a new artistic vocabulary. In 1954, his work was exhibited at the ICA (London) by Sir Herbert Read. The exhibition then traveled to the Art Institute of Rotterdam. His work is found in the permanent collections of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, The British Museum, as well as various public collections in India and Sri Lanka. Obituaries featured in The Independent and The Times in England following his death in Colombo in 1993.
Select Solo Exhibitions
1975 George Keyt – Exhibition of Recent Paintings, French Embassy (Sri Lanka), Kalagaraya Gallery
and the French Club of the University of Sri Lanka
1974 Recent paintings and Drawings, Commonwealth Art Gallery, London
1972 Lionel Weldt Memorial Exhibition, Colombo, Sri Lanka
1969 George Keyt – Exhibition of Recent Paintings, Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
Selected Paintings and Drawings by George Keyt, Indian Council for Cultural Relations
1968 Samudra Gallery, Colombo, Sri Lanka
1956 Peradeniya University, Colombo, Sri Lanka
1954 Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
Art Institute of Rotterdam, Holland
1953 All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society (AIFACS), New Delhi and Group' 43, Colombo in New
Delhi
1946 Exhibition in India organized by Mulk Raj Anand, Anil de Silva and others
Select Group Exhibitions
1972 Lionel Wendt Memorial Exhibition, Colombo, Sri Lanka
1967 Sri Lanka Pavilion, Expo' 67, Montreal, Canada
1936 Organized by Dr. G. P. Malasekhara and Ceylonese Society of Arts, Colombo Art Gallery,
Colombo, Sri Lanka
1932 Motor Show Room, Colombo, Sri Lanka
1930 With W. W. Beling and Winzer, Ferguson Memorial Hall
1929 With Other Sri Lankan Artists, W. W. Beling, Winzer and Justin Daraniyagala, Ceylon Art Club,
Colombo, Sri Lanka
1928 Memorial Exhibition in Honor of W. W. Beling, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Awards and Honors
1970 Award for Services to the Nation in the Field of Art, Ceylon Society of Art
1968 Hony. D. Litt, University of Sri Lanka, Paradeniya
1950 Declined the Offer of the Order of the British Empire
Collections
Victoria and Albert Museum, London
The British Museum, London
FRANCIS NEWTON SOUZA (1924 – 2002)
Born 1924, Saligaon, Goa, India.
Died 2002, Bombay, India.
Diploma in Painting, Sir J.J. School of Art, Mumbai (1940-45)
Italian Government Scholarship, study tour of Italy (1960)
Francis Newton Souza was born in India in 1924 and is of Goan Christian origin. As one of the co-founders of the Progressive Artists' Group in 1947, along with M.F. Husain, Raza, Ara and others, Souza led the edge of the Indian modernist art movement. He is widely recognised as a leading modernist and was the only Indian artist to be included in Tate Modern's group exhibition on 20th Century Modernism in 2002.
An iconoclast known for his powerful imagery, F. N. Souza unrestrained and graphic style created much controversy in his life and work. His repertoire of subjects covers still life, landscape, nudes and icons of Christianity, rendered boldly in a frenzied distortion of form. Souza's paintings express defiance and impatience with convention and the banality of everyday life.
Souza's works have reflected the influence of various schools of art: the folk art of his native Goa, the full-blooded paintings of the Renaissance, the religious fervor of the Catholic Church, the landscapes of 18th and 19th century Europe and the path-breaking work of the cubists. A recurrent theme in his work is the sexual tensions and friction within the male and female relationship and their ensuing conflicts. In drawings, Souza uses line with economy but captures fine detail in his forms; or uses a profusion of crosshatched strokes that make up the overall structure of his subject.
In 1942, Souza was expelled from the J.J. School of Art for partaking in the 'Quit India' movement. He left for London in 1949, making his mark on the European art scene and rose to fame with his 1955 one-man show at Gallery One, London – the same year his autobiographical essay 'Nirvana of a Maggot' was published. Souza exhibited internationally during his lifetime, solo and group shows include the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (1954); Venice Biennale (1954); Guggenheim Museum, USA (1958); Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1958); Tate Gallery (1968); Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo/Rio de Janeiro (1961); Guggenheim Foundation, USA (1967); Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK (1982); Royal Academy of Art, London (1982); Hirschhorn Museum, Washington D.C (1982); Retrospectives include India House, London (1951, organised by Mr. V.K. Krishna Menon, then High Commissioner), and two organised by Art Heritage Gallery, Delhi (1986, 1996).
Select Solo and Group Exhibitions – Posthumous
2008 Summer collection, works by modern and contemporary south Asian artists,
Aicon Gallery, London
2008 Winter Moderns, an exhibit of five senior modern Indian artists - M.F. Husain,
F.N. Souza, Shyamal Dutta Ray, Satish Gujral and B. Prabha, Aicon Gallery,
New York
2008 'The Ghost of Souza', an exhibit of works by acclaimed artist Francis Newton
Souza, together with Indian and Pakistani artists influenced by Souza's work at
Aicon Gallery, New York
2007 From the Vault, Aicon Gallery, London and New York
Bacon, Freud, Mehta, Souza, Grosvenor Vadehra, New Delhi
2005-6 F. N. Souza, Religion & Erotica: Tate Britain, London
Self-Portrait, Renaissance to contemporary: National Portrait Gallery, London
2005 Francis Newton Souza, Saffronart and Grosvenor Gallery, London/New York
Ashta Nayak: Eight Pioneers of Indian Art, Gallery ArtsIndia, New York
Modern Indian Paintings, Grosvenor Gallery, London
A Tribute to F. N. SOUZA, Kumar Gallery, New Delhi /Manifestations III, Nehru Centre,
Mumbai; Rabindra Bhavan, New Delhi, and Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
2004 Manifestations II, Jehangir Gallery and the Delhi Art Gallery
Ethos: Contemporary Indian Art, Indigo Blue Art, Singapore
Souza in London, curated by Yashodhara Dalmia from the Bhayana family collection, British
Council, New Delhi
2003 Modern Indian Painting, Grosvenor Gallery London
Francis Newton Souza: Works on paper, Saffronart, Mumbai
F.N Souza: A Definitive Retrospective, Gallery Artsindia, New York
Manifestations, Delhi Art Gallery
2002 Souza and Friends, Grosvenor Gallery, London,.
Souza in Bombay and Goa, Art Musings Gallery, Mumbai
2001 Souza: A Modern Myth, Gallery 88, Calcutta
Select Solo Exhibitions
1999 Copeland Fine Art Gallery, Columbus, Ohio, USA
1998 Bose Pacia Modern, New York
1997 Souza: A Retrospective, Julian Hartnolls Gallery, London
1996 Art Heritage, NEw Delhi
'Souza from the Alkazi Collection', Academy of Fine Arts and Literature New Delhi
The Acrylics of Souza, L.T.G. Art Gallery, New Delhi
1995 The Chemicals of Souza, L. T.G. Art Gallery, New Delhi
1993 Souza, 1940s-1990s Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi
1983 Souza in the Forties, Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi
1985 Pundole Art Gallery, Mumbai
1976 Dhoomimal Art Gallery,New Delhi
1975 76 Arts 38, London.
1968 London Arts Gallery Detroit, USA.
1966 Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi
1966 Grosvenor Gallery, London
1963 Taj Gallery Mumbai.
1962 Kumar Gallery, New Delhi.
1961 Gallery One, London
62 North Audley Street London.
1960 Gallery One, London
1959 Gallery One, London
1957 Gallery One, London
1955 Gallery One, London.
1954 Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
Gallery Creuze,London
1951 Indian Embassy, London
Select Group Exhibitions
2001 Souza & Baiju, Saffronart and Apparao Galleries, Mumbai
1996 National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai
1987 Coups de Coeur, Halles de L'Ile, Geneva
1986 Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi
1985 East-West Visual Arts Encounter, Bombay
1982 Modern Indian Paintings, Hirschorn Museum & Sculpture Garden Washington D.C.
India: Myth and Reality, Museum of Modern Art, Oxford, UK
Contemporary Indian Art, Royal Academy, London
1977 Commonwealth Artists of Fame, London
1972 Minneapolis International Art Festival, USA
1968 Tate Gallery, London
1967 Guggenheim Foundation USA
1965 Art Now in India, Arts Council of Great Britain, London
1964 Grosvenor Gallery, 1964
1962 Commonwealth Institute, London
1961 Museum of Modern Art, Sao Paulo/Rio de Janeiro
1958 Guggenheim Museum, USA
Whitechapel Art Gallery, London
1957 John Moore's Exhibition, Walker Art Gallery Liverpool
1956,57,59,60 Gallery One, London
1954 Venice Biennale Italy
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London
1949 Bombay Art Society Salon, Mumbai
1948 Progressive Artists' Group, inaugural exhibition
Awards
1960 Italian Government Scholarship (through the British Council)
1967 Guggenheim International Award, New York
1957 John Moores Prize, Liverpool
Public Collections
National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi
Baroda Museum, Baroda
National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai
CIMA – Centre International Modern Art, Calcutta
Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
Tate, London, UK
Glenbarra Museum, Himeji, Japan
SHYAMAL DUTTA RAY
Born 1934, in Bihar
Diploma in Painting,CGAC (1950-55)
Shyamal Dutta Ray's body of work constitutes a major turning point in the history of the Bengal School of Art. Ray is credited with adding depth and intensity to the medium of watercolors, at a time when the Bengal school of Art traditionally used light and watery colors. His melancholic and pensive works reflect the contradictions of life around him.
Regarded as a master watercolorist, Ray is also a founding member of the Society of Contemporary Artists, an artists' collective, which sought to introduce innovativeness into the art world of the 1960s. Most of Ray's work reflects the city life of Calcutta, with its happiness and sorrow, struggle and strife, poverty and hope. The works also exhibit a sense of irony, surrealism and awareness of a disintegrating society.
The Artist passed away on 19th May 2005
Select Posthumous Exhibitions
2008 Post Independence Masters, Aicon Gallery, New York
Shyamal Dutta Ray Memorial Show, Akar Prakar, Kolkata
2006 Tribute, Aicon Gallery, New York
Select Exhibitions
1999 Watercolor Marks, Mumbai
Modern and Contemporary Works on Paper, Bonhams, London
1997 Exhibition, Chitrakoot Art Gallery, Kolkata
1995 Modern and Contemporary Indian Paintings, Sotheby's Auction, London
1993 Artists for Helpage, Asprey's Auction, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
Wounds, Centre for International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata
1991 Art For Spastics, Kolkata
Espace & Chitrakoot, Kolkata
1990 Bengal Art Today, Galerie 88, Kolkata
1987 Indian Drawing Today, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
II Havana Biennale, Cuba
1985 VI International Triennale
1984 Kala Yatra and Sistas, Chennai
1983 Asian Art Biennale, Dacca
1982 Kala Yatra, Mumbai, Bangalore, London, Manchester, Paris
1981 Kala Yatra, Hyderabad
Indian Painting Today, Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
1976 Western Pacific Print Biennale, Australia
1971 Prints from India, Poland
1969 Traveling Exhibition, Asian Graphic Prints, USA
1958 Exhibition at Academy of Fine Arts, Kolkata