Professor Partha Mitter, Professor Parul Dave Mukherji and Professor Rakhee Balaram, eminent art historians and editors of the new seminal publication, 20th Century Indian Art, published by Thames & Hudson in association with Art Alive, will be in conversation with social anthropologist Professor Manuela Ciotti and art historian Professor Naman Ahuja, contributors to the book. The discussion will cover the making of the book, and the key movements, artists and ideas that have come to define Indian modern and contemporary art in the present day. The conversation will be moderated by writer Premjish Achari, and be followed by a book signing and launch.

Professor Partha Mitter is a writer and historian of art and culture, specializing in the reception of Indian art in the West, as well as in modernity, art and identity in India, and more recently in global modernism. He studied history at London University, did his doctorate with E. H. Gombrich (1970) and is an honorary D.Lit. at Courtauld Institute, London. He began his career as Junior Research Fellow at Churchill College, Cambridge (1968-69) and Research Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge (1970-74). In 1974 he joined Sussex as a Lecturer in Indian History, retiring in 2002 as Professor in Art History. His books include Much Maligned Monsters: History of European Reactions to Indian Art, Art and Nationalism in Colonial India 1850-1922, Indian Art, and The Triumph of Modernism: India’s Artists and the Avant-Garde 1922-1947.

Professor Parul Dave Mukherji is an art historian and professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. She holds a PhD from Oxford University. Her fellowships include Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Mass., Baden Wurttemberg at the South Asia Institute, SAI, Heidelberg, British Academy Award, London. Her Books and articles include InFlux: Contemporary Art in Asia (co-edited); ‘Whither Art History in a Globalizing World’, The Art Bulletin (2014); Arts and Aesthetics in a Globalizing World (co-edited) ; Ebrahim Alkazi: Directing Art – The Making of a Modern Indian Art World (editor) and Rethinking Aesthetics in a Comparative Frame (co-edited).

Professor Manuela Ciotti is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the Global South at the University of Vienna. She has extensive research experience spanning two and half decades and has carried out fieldwork in India, the US, and Italy among others on the topics of modernity, Dalit communities, gender and politics, biennales, and art collecting. This research has resulted in a rich body of essays in leading journals and she is the author of Retro-modern India: Forging the Low-caste Self (Routledge, 2010) and Unsettling the Archetypes: Femininities and Masculinities in Indian Politics (Women Unlimited, 2017). Manuela Ciotti is part of the 2022–2023 Fellows cohort at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study (NIAS) where she will be working on a monograph on the global spread of modern and contemporary art from India through exhibitions held at several world locations (forthcoming with Indiana University Press).

Professor Naman P. Ahuja is Professor at JNU (Jawaharlal Nehru University), New Delhi and Co-Editor of Marg Publications, Mumbai. His books include, Divine Presence: The Arts of India and the Himalayas, The Making of the Modern Indian Artist-Craftsman: Devi Prasad, provides a study of the impact of the Arts and Crafts movement on India. The Body in Indian Art and Thought explores a variety of social and aesthetic ideas around image-making. And most recently, The Art and Interiors of Rashtrapati Bhavan: Lutyens and Beyond explores the politics behind the interior design of the home of the President of India.

Professor Rakhee Balaram is Assistant Professor of Global Modern and Contemporary Art and Art History at University at Albany, State University of New York. She previously taught at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and the University of Warwick. She holds double doctorates from Cambridge University and the Courtauld Institute of Art, London. In the field of South Asian art, she was the recipient of the Art Histories Fellowship in Berlin, Germany (2015-16), for her work on Amrita Sher- Gil and Rabindranath Tagore. Her publications on Indian art include those for Marg, Art India, Asia Art Archive, Devi Art Foundation, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, ZKM Museum, Karlsruhe and Fowler Museum, Los Angeles.

Premjish Achari is a curator, and writer based out of Delhi. He started an in-depth curatorial platform called Future Collaborations aiming at theoretically and politically informed curation. He is the co-curator of Bhubaneswar Art Trail 2018. Achari currently heads the programme and the editorial for the exhibition ‘Lokame Tharavadu’ organised by Kochi Biennale Foundation and teaches art history and theory at Shiv Nadar University. He was the Co-curator of the public art exhibition “Navigation is Offline” as part of the Bhubaneswar Art Trail 2018. He is the winner of the Art Writers’ Award 2021 issued by Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia, along with TAKE on Art. He has received the Inlaks: Take on Art Travel Grant for Young Critics in 2016. In 2018, he received the Art Scribes Award by Prameya Art Foundation for developing new curatorial paradigms and as part of the Award, he attended a residency at Chateau de La Napoule, France.