India’s struggle for independence and its assertion of a new-found identity was not just marked by political and social shifts. It witnessed an artistic awakening too. Years before Independence, artists from different corners of the country — from Mumbai’s The Progressive Artists’ Group founded by F.
N. Souza, M. F.
Husain, and S. H. Raza, amongst others, Europe-returned Amrita Sher-Gil, to artists from Bengal’s Santiniketan, moved decisively away from colonial narratives.
The art that flourished from the 1940s to the 1970s asserted the voice of a new India — one that needed to look inwards and build its own canon of rich cultural heritage while also keeping pace with the contemporary art movements that shaped the world. The recently concluded exhibition, ‘The Four: Celebrating the Birth Centenary of Four Modern Indian Masters’, displayed the works of four such modern Indian masters — F.N.
Souza, K.G. Subramanyan, Ram Kumar, and V.
S. Gaitonde — all born in 1924. Organised by the Progressive Art Gallery, in collaboration with the Raza Foundation, the show was curated by eminent historian and critic Yashodhara Dalmia.
Dalmia’s curatorial vision was aimed to showcase each artist’s journey. “They represented different facets of a newly independent India, exploring the human experience, spirituality, and the sociopolitical context of the time,” she tells TMS. Harsh Vardhan Singh, Director & CEO of Progressive Art Gallery, says the legacies of the four �.
