Manjari Sihare shares some snapshots from the latest exhibition of modern Indian art at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts
New York: The Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts, recently opened a major show of modern Indian art entitled “Midnight to the Boom: Painting in India after Independence.” This exhibition showcases approximately seventy works by twenty Indian artists spanning three generations. The works have been culled from the museum’s iconic Chester and Davida Herwitz Collection, renowned as one of largest collections of modern Indian art in the United States and the world, for that matter.
I had the pleasure of attending the opening of this seminal show in early February, and was immediately struck by its intelligent curation by Susan Bean, the recently retired senior curator of South Asian and Korean art at the Peabody Essex Museum. In this show, works of master Indian artists have been juxtaposed alongside key works by artists around the world in what have been referred to as “conversational groupings” by the curator. So you will see Bikash Bhattarjee’s works against those of American artist, Andrew Wyeth, and Maqbool Fida Husain’s horses with those of veteran Chinese artist, Xu Beihong, among others.
The exhibition is on view for another two months, until April 21, 2013, and Salem is an easy half an hour from Boston. For those in the vicinity of North Eastern US in the coming weeks, this show is a must-see! Stay tuned for more on the show in the coming weeks. For now, here are some snapshots from the opening.
All images are courtesy the Peabody Essex Museum.