One Hundred Years and Counting: Re-Scripting KG Subramanyan: A research-based survey exhibition curated by Nancy Adajania

Preview on: April 5 2024 | 4 PM – 8 PM

Dates: April 5 – June 21, 2024| 11 AM – 7 PM (Sundays closed)

Emami Art, Ground Floor

The Exhibition is presented by Emami Art in collaboration with Seagull and

Faculty of Fine Arts, MS University, Baroda.

Other collaborators: Kolkata Centre for Creativity and KCC-Conservation Lab.

In April 2024, Emami Art opens a major research-based, retrospective-scale exhibition of Indian modernist KG Subramanyan (1924-2016), curated by curator and cultural theorist Nancy Adajania. Marking his birth centenary year, this wide-ranging and critical survey, the largest in eastern India after his death, will situate and re-assess the artist in the larger cultural scenario of postcolonial India’s unfolding modernism and affirm the continuing relevance of his practice.  

Widely recognized as one of the most versatile and prolific artists, Subramanyan was also a great writer, thinker and pedagogue who studied art at Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan under Nandalal Bose, Benodebehari Mukherjee and Ramkinkar Baij, and at the Slade School of Art, London. Spanning more than seven decades of his practice, this exhibition will feature more than 200 works, including his early paintings from the 1950s, iconic reverse paintings on acrylic, gouaches, marker pen works on paper, postcard-size drawings (especially his perceptive impressions of his Chinese travels from the 1980s), inventive toys made for the Fine Arts Fairs at the MS University, Baroda, between 1962 and 1979, and a significant amount of archival material not seen before such as handcrafted mock-ups of children's books, preparatory sketches for murals, and the maquettes for his powerful ‘The War of the Relics’ (2013). This exhibition will explore various aspects of his creative genius, aiming to dismantle the stereotypical readings that persist about the artist and his work.