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Indian Express
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Indian Express
The art of war: How artists have chronicled India's conflicts
'Make Art, Not War,' wrote contemporary artist Subodh Gupta on Instagram earlier this month. Amid escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, Gupta here suggested 'art' — and its aesthetic qualities — as an alternative to 'peace'. But beauty is not all that art is about. A work of art captures the period of time in which it was made better than almost any other medium, says Kishore Singh, Head, Exhibitions and Publications, DAG. 'Art is able to offer perspectives that reflect social and political issues as well as the artist's own thinking,' he told The Indian Express. And because art is subjective, the viewers' sensibilities are as important as those of the artist. 'This allows for diverse commentaries to emerge, thereby offering alternative perspectives based on one's own lived experiences — an indulgence not available through any other medium. Without this documentation and its ability to absorb the multipolarities offered by art, society would be in danger of becoming a unipolar world,' Singh says. Responding to war has been no different for Indian artists. Their visual evocations of the tragedy and triumph of India's wars have created a corpus of artworks that now serve as indispensable documentation. Here's a brief history. The birth of a nation India was born in 1947 not as one nation but two. The Partition resulted in the largest exodus in history, displacing as many as 20 million people, and communal violence triggered in its wake left as many as 2 million people dead. This was an event as devastating as any war. Satish Gujral poignantly captured the loss of life and the idea of home in his Partition series. His figurative works in predominantly sombre shades of black, grey and occasional browns narrated the anguish and despair of those, including himself, forced to leave everything behind. Wrapped in tornado-esque swirls, his figures spoke of the storm that hit their lives. Gujral began the series nearly a decade after the Partition. He drew from memory but the scars were deep enough to inspire a body of work 'devoted to the idea of violence, loss, and migration in the face of uncertainty and death,' according to Singh. In the 2007 documentary on the Partition titled The Day India Burned, Gujral had said, 'This experience sunk in me so deep that after Partition when I began to paint without any conscious effort, this human suffering, this brutality of man to man, became my theme.' Many artistic iterations of conflict revolve around the idea of loss, an emotion captured all too well by Tyeb Mehta in his paintings Falling Bird (2004) and Trussed Bull (1956), the latter being the second most expensive Indian artwork ever sold. 'He did not directly paint his experience of war but depicted it as a loss of power and humanity, expressing its grotesqueness and exposing vulnerabilities,' Singh says. Soon after Partition, India and Pakistan went to war over Kashmir. This war, which began in 1947 and lasted till the end of 1948, would be the first of many fights the two countries would have over the years. The sequence of events — the establishment of the piquet on the Bodh Kulan Ganj cliffs, the unfolding of the battle in the Gurais Valley, the subsequent developments in Uri, and the final battle in Zoji La — was recreated in a series of drawings by documentary filmmaker Serbjeet Singh, better known for his paintings of the Himalayas. These paintings were commissioned by the military itself. 'He was tasked with documenting the first Kashmir war of 1948 and the role of the Indian Army in it by General K S Thimaya as a means of recording history,' DAG's Kishore Singh says. A set of 47 drawings by Serbjeet Singh titled Kashmir War went under the hammer in 2018 at a Bonhams auction. Decade of two wars Serbjeet Singh's services were sought once again, this time by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to document the India-China war of 1962. Singh was reportedly asked to draw a landscape of the North East Frontier Agency (renamed Arunachal pradesh in 1972) to understand where the Indian army had faltered. Many of Singh's drawings continue to be displayed at the headquarters of the Indian Army in New Delhi. But it was with the 1965 India-Pakistan war that the significance of art as a medium of documentation received unprecedented state support. Under the Army's 'witness programme', four members of the Bombay Progressive Art Movement — MF Husain, Ram Kumar, Krishen Khanna and Tyeb Mehta — were invited to the war zone in the immediate aftermath of the conflict. Husain reportedly made quick drawings of what he saw, a few of which were auctioned by Pundole's in 2019. 'To both heal the emotional trauma and to create a visual record, Husain made several drawings of the destruction he witnessed, and recreated visuals of battle stories as recounted by the soldiers. As a token of appreciation for the jawans, he offered to draw portraits of anyone willing to sit for him. Several obliged, and the artist recollects giving away scores of drawings to his models and also brought a few back for himself,' notes the auction house website. In a previous interview to The Indian Express, Khanna had confessed to painting a distressing image of a soldier who was blown apart inside a tank. When no one bought it, he gave the work to his son. Mehta, on the other hand, recreated the Dograi Battle on canvas. 'Tyeb once showed me the slide of a painting he had done after this visit,' recalls art historian, critic and curator R Sivakumar. 'Most artists are more humanists than jingoists, and that makes them good interlocutors in times of peace but bad soldiers for the nation in times of war.' Liberation & loss The largest body of anti-war paintings emerged from the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971, with artists such as Bikash Bhattacharjee, Ganesh Pyne, Somnath Hore, Nikhil Biswas, Nirode Majumdar and Rabin Mondal creating 'unusually bleak paintings, prints and sculptures' as a form of 'societal indictment'. In his familiar primitivist style, Mondal, for instance, addressed the large-scale displacement caused by the war in his Crossing the Border series. 'It continues to impact us just as strongly as in the 1970s, reflecting the futility, but also the dangers, of borders that separate countries and their people,' DAG's Singh says. The tragedy of what had unfolded in Bengal inspired artists around the subcontinent. Gulammohammed Sheikh ditched his otherwise vibrant palette to depict the horrors of the violence in a rather grim etching titled Riots (1971). Equally poignant was Bhupen Khakar's Muktibahini Soldier with a Gun painted in 1972 and executed in his quintessential figurative style. K G Subramanyan's terracotta reliefs bring the perpetrators of violence and their victims into sharp juxtaposition. 'That through the deft manipulation of clay, he gave sensuous embodiment to the aggressor's inhumanity and the victim's vulnerability, makes these works powerfully expressive,' says Sivakumar, recalling how the artist said that such works 'come about only when an outside event is perceived as an assault on one's being'. Like with darkness, there is light; in despair there is hope. Chittaprosad's Bangladesh War (1971) epitomises this sentiment. 'It celebrates the creation of Bangladesh, replacing the invading Pakistani army with the forces of the Mukti Bahini. The country is represented in the form of a woman bestowing the boons of education, prosperity and wisdom on her citizens. It is a moving homage to the creation of a new identity and must be the most poignant visual tribute — a hymn really — to the birth of a new nation ever painted by any artist,' Singh says. Scars that stay The thing about war is that its effects are felt long after the guns go silent. The trauma of violence passed on through generations forms the subject of the practices of many contemporary Indian artists, who may not have witnessed war first-hand or were too young to process the severity of the losses. In her There was a Home series, Prajakta Potnis superimposes found pieces of wall with peeled wall colour, alluding to the debris of houses in the aftermath of war. This series, which she began in 2024, serves today as a grim reminder of the homes lost in Kashmir in the recent India-Pakistan clashes. The prolonged effects of war are also captured with nuance by artist Baptist Coelho in his series Bandages-Bullets. He uses the seemingly contrasting objects — both symbols of war — to make a comment on perception. 'In 2015, during my exhibition in Leh, a little girl, upon seeing gauze bandages in an artwork, remarked that they looked like cartridges,' the artist recalls. 'Her words revealed how trauma and conflict shape perception, turning symbols of healing into markers of destruction.'
Mint
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Mint
Indian art is having its breakout moment. Here's who's driving it
Indian art is having its breakout moment—and a new generation of collectors, curators and market makers is leading the charge. In a matter of weeks, a trio of blockbuster art auctions across New York and Mumbai raked in more than ₹ 220 crore, with modern masters like M.F. Husain and Tyeb Mehta smashing records once reserved for Western icons. The biggest headline came from Christie's in New York, where Husain's monumental Gram Yatra sold for ₹ 118 crore—the highest price ever paid for an Indian artwork. Not far behind, Mehta's Trussed Bull fetched ₹ 61.8 crore at Saffronart's Mumbai sale, nearly nine times its high estimate. At Sotheby's in New York, Jagdish Swaminathan's Homage to Solzhenitsyn crossed ₹ 39 crore. After years of quiet momentum, India's art market has entered a new phase of global relevance—driven not just by wealth, but by strategic repositioning, institutional power, and a swelling wave of collectors who view art not just as culture, but as capital. Also read | How Sotheby's made it to the spotlight in India's art market 'The surge in demand is being driven by the onset of a new crop of collectors, not just the older well-heeled ones but even a younger lot who have equal love for the masters as well as the globally renowned lot of mid-career masters," said Delhi-based independent critic and curator Uma Nair. While Husain, Raza and Mehta remain anchors of the market, contemporary names like Jitish Kallat, Atul Dodiya and Bharti Kher are also drawing attention. Veteran buyers like Kiran Nadar still dominate, but younger, digital-savvy collectors are entering the fray—fuelling record prices and a broader appetite for both modern masters and contemporary stars. While Nadar placed the winning bid for Husain's Gram Yatra , emerging names like Shankh Mitra are stepping into the spotlight too. Mitra was among the final contenders for the historic Husain sale, and reflects what Nair calls an example of 'the desire for accumulating art as an asset." Jaiveer Johal, a logistics business owner in Chennai, began collecting modern and contemporary Indian art about a decade ago, when he was 28. He soon widened his collection—moving swiftly from modern to contemporary to classicals. Now 36, Johal calls his collection 'aesthetically focused." It includes paintings by S.H. Raza and F.N. Souza, as well as sculptures and miniatures from classical traditions, such as Gandhara and Vijayanagara-period pieces. "The most notable is the emergence of young collectors, looking specifically at contemporary art and the average collector is between 40-50 years, the younger collectors have begun to collect as early as 30," AstaGuru's CEO, Tushar Sethi had told Mint in an earlier conversation. Read this | The Met's Indian affair: Iconic New York museum embraces India's contemporary art boom With major galleries and a wave of new collectors driving art events across the country, Nair said, 'Great artworks reflect the market dynamics, and are positioned with a clear sense of how they stand out among the many styles that appeal to today's new generation of collectors." This boom isn't just about deeper pockets. It's being powered by a wider, younger base—many of them digital-first, collecting well beyond traditional names. 'There is a confidence in the market that cannot be denied," said Minal Vazirani, co-founder of auction house Saffronart. 'Since the pandemic, we've seen increasing wealth and interest, and now there's a new segment of younger, digital-native collectors alongside seasoned ones." She added that the Indian art market has doubled since 2020—from ₹ 700 crore to over ₹ 1,400 crore. According to Nair, the art boom mirrors India's economic story. "The Indian economy and its many facets of meteoric momentum in addition to wealth, have all added to the records that have fuelled strong market dynamics," Nair told Mint . Record-breaking sales, she added, 'tell us of the rites of passage in the hands of a group of collectors." The numbers tell the story. March alone brought in ₹ 470 crore in global sales—nearly a fourth of FY25's full-year total, according to Asign Data Sciences. Analysts say this surge, years in the making, is likely to carry well into 2025. And if Saffronart's April auction is any sign, the rally is just getting started. That sale alone topped ₹ 245 crore, setting a new global benchmark for South Asian art with a 100% sell-through rate. Highlights included Amrita Sher-Gil's Still Life with Green Bottles and Apples ( ₹ 24 crore), F.N. Souza's Supper at Emmaus ( ₹ 15.3 crore), and Edwin Lord Weeks' Lake at Oodeypore ( ₹ 12 crore). Seven artists set new global price benchmarks, including Nalini Malani's Nursery Tales at ₹ 3.36 crore—over five times its estimate. AstaGuru and Pundole's also reported strong demand for both marquee names and rarer historical pieces. A 1903 Riddhisiddhi Ganpati —once part of the Fritz Schleicher collection—fetched ₹ 16 crore at Pundole's, doubling its high estimate. Read this | Indian art market is one of the most exciting we've seen in recent years: Christie's CEO Cerutti At AstaGuru, Jehangir Sabavala's In The Ambush Of A Calm sold for ₹ 3.8 crore in February, while a 1980 J. Swaminathan canvas, Bird Tree Mountain , fetched ₹ 2.56 crore—underscoring a growing collector appetite beyond the usual trio of Husain, Mehta and Raza. 'Culture is a logical extension of financial prosperity. The momentum for the Indian art market began during the pandemic and it is continuing," said Dadiba Pundole, whose gallery has watched the build-up since the pandemic. 'By and large, Indians are buying the blue-chip works, and rare or special works have recently come to the market and broken barriers like crossing $10 million, demonstrating that the market is becoming more discerning. But as the prices of some big names go out of hand, buyers are also considering works that are not very expensive," Pundole said. Asign's data backs that up. In FY25, the highest volume of sales came from the sub- ₹ 5 lakh price range, suggesting a widening base. At the same time, the ₹ 5 crore-and-above segment generated 40% of overall turnover, with 244 artworks sold above that level—up 17% from FY24. In the ₹ 5–10 crore bracket alone, 35 works sold, a 34% jump from the year before. And read | Indian art prices are at an all-time high. Is there stagnation or growth ahead? 'What we're seeing at the upper end is that older collectors are still buying, but younger collectors are also entering steadily," added Pundole. 'Current trends suggest this upward cycle will continue. While there may be short-term disruptions from stock or macroeconomic shifts, the long-term trajectory is positive. We expect to see more important works entering the market." With major auctions lined up in Delhi, London and New York, the story of Indian art's ascent is still being written. But one thing is clear: it's no longer waiting in the wings.
