In King and Queen of Spades, Barwe employs solid, contrasting colors, in a style reminiscent of Basohli painting, a school of Pahari artists who often use deep reds and yellows. Also recalling Indian textile design in its alternation of fields of color with more intricate designs, this painting reflects Barwe’s association with the Weaver’s Service […]
Better known as an art critic and historian, Appasamy worked briefly as an artist, painting mostly landscapes. As chair of the arts organization Delhi Silpi Chakra (Delhi Sculptors’ Circle), she resisted contemporary efforts to create an Indian national art. She saw modernism as the confluence of a range of artistic traditions, not a novel form […]
A teacher, writer, and, later in life, museum director, Berk synthesized local themes with a moderately modernist style. His works from the early 1930s are Cubist, but in the 1940s and ’50s he turned to a Cézannesque plastic construction, monumentalizing stereotypical local figures such as potters, rug weavers, hookah smokers, and women ironing. Later his […]
Abby Grey purchased Pakbaz’s Composition Four, seen here, and Composition One (G1975.107) during a visit to the Ghandriz Gallery in 1973. Although more minimalist than works by the artist’s peers, these dimensional constructions suggest the geometric forms of buildings and mosques in Iran that they were also referencing; similarly, Pakbaz’s metallic hues mimic the colors […]
