DAG presents A Place in The Sun: Women Artists from 20th Century India, an exhibition exploring the remarkable contribution of women artists in the context of Indian modernism, representing a selection of trailblazers, each of whom crafted a unique identity and practice. This exhibition surveys their artistic journeys, fighting prejudice and patriarchy at a time when women were discouraged from pursuing art, and uncovers the wide breadth of their interests including early abstract painting, the
arduous regimen of making sculptures, and printmaking.
A Place in The Sun covers the span of the twentieth century – from India’s first art school-trained woman artist, Ambika Dhurandhar, who earned her diploma in Bombay, through later women artists joining art schools in greater numbers, a time when their visual language stopped being contextualized to their gender only – until the end of the twentieth century when they were equal partners in fashioning a modern and contemporary discourse for Indian art. As some sought to explicitly highlight feminist concerns in their work, addressing questions of gender, class, marginalization, and environments; others responded to folk, abstract, tantra or other aspects of art making. The exhibition’s curation begins with the incredible Devyani Krishna, born five years after Sunayani Devi began painting in 1905 at the age of thirty, and Zarina Hashmi,
born a decade before independence in 1947. It features 10 artists including Madhvi Parekh, Zarina Hashmi, Shobha Broota, Anupam Sud, Gogi Saroj Pal, Latika Katt, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Navjot and Rekha Rodwittiya.
Find out more about the show here.