Paper Trails
Modern Indian Works on Paper from the Gaur CollectionThis volume features over 100 watercolors, drawings, etchings, sketches and lithographs by senior Indian modernists, spanning the transition from colonial to post-colonial India. Praise and Media: “...powerfully depicts the complexities of Indian modernity and the way they play out in rural and urban realities.” —The Week “...rare piece of scholarly writing about works on paper from post-Independence India.” —Avantika Bhuyan, Mint Media: Hindustan Times Mint Business of Life HELLO! The Telegraph
- Category: , All Books, Contemporary Art, MAPIN20
Within the context of modern and contemporary India, works on paper offered artists a way of cultivating transnational modernist expression while continuing to explore the potential of a medium that had deeper roots in older artistic traditions native to the subcontinent. This volume features over 100 watercolours, drawings, etchings, sketches, and lithographs by senior Indian modernists, born primarily before the 1950s and who came of age in the decades directly following Independence in 1947. These artists span the transition from colonial to postcolonial India, embracing both realism and abstraction, exploring complex metaphors, and making political statements that directly engage India’s past, present, and future.
With contributions by Tamara Sears, Rebecca M. Brown, Jeffrey Wechsler, Darielle Mason, Paula Sengupta, Michael Mackenzie, Emma Osle, Kishore Singh and Swathi Gorle, this book accompanies the exhibition at Grinnell College Museum of Art drawn from the collection of Umesh and Sunanda Gaur and curated by Tamara Sears.
Dr. Tamara Sears is Associate Professor of Art History at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
Dr. Michael Mackenzie is Professor of Art History at Grinnell College.
Dr. Paula Sengupta is Professor at the Department of Graphics-Printmaking at the Faculty of Visual Arts, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata.
Emma Oslé is an advanced Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art History at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
Dr. Darielle Mason is the Stella Kramrisch Curator and Head of the Department of South Asian Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and adjunct professor of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Rebecca M. Brown, Professor and Chair of the Department of the History of Art at Johns Hopkins University, is a scholar of colonial and post-1947 South Asian visual culture and politics.
Jeffrey Wechsler has been Senior Curator at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, retiring in 2013 and has authored numerous publications on art.
Kishore Singh is a former jounalist and editor, who has been a columnist, documentary scriptwriter and also authored several books.
Swathi Gorle is an advanced Ph.D. candidate in the department of Art History at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.
• Directorʼs Acknowledgement
• Curatorʼs Preface and Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• The Intimacy of Paper
• A Brief History of Printmaking in India
• An Aesthetics of Borders, Globalization, and Migration in Post-Partition India
• Ancient Narratives of Devotion: Continuity, Transformation, Rejection
• Cacophonies and Silence: Hearing Abstraction
• CATALOG
• Topographic Engagements
• Narrative
• Politics and Social Critique
• Myth and Religion
• Portraits/Personas
• Abstraction
• The Collections of Umesh and Sunanda Gaur: Acquisitions and Aspirations for Modern Indian Culture
| ISBN | 9789394501072 |
| Pages | 232 |
| Number of illustrations | 149 |
| Size | 9 x 10″ (228.6 x 254 mm), plc |
| Date of Publishing | Nov. 2022 |
| Language(s) | English |
| Co-publisher(s) | In association with Grinnell College Museum of Art, USA |
| Rights Available | World rights |
—The Week
“...rare piece of scholarly writing about works on paper from post-Independence India.”
—Avantika Bhuyan, Mint