The Big Book of Indian Art: An Illustrated History of Indian Art from Its Origins to the Present Day

The Big Book of Indian Art: An Illustrated History of Indian Art from Its Origins to the Present Day is the most comprehensive book yet published on modern Indian art. It traces the history of Indian art from its origins to the present day, and features the work of more than 300 Indian artists—painters, sculptors, illustrators, printmakers, multi-media artists, lithographers, and muralists. It is divided into eight sections—‘The Bengal School’, ‘The Bombay School’, ‘The Calcutta Group’, ‘The Progressive Painters’ Association in Chennai and the Cholamandal Artists’ Village’, ‘The Progressive Artists Group of Bombay’, ‘The Baroda Group’, ‘Artistic Footprints: Indian Icons’, and ‘The Art Landscape Post Independence’. Each section deals with a landmark art movement or school of Indian art. ‘The Bengal School’, includes noted artists of the period—among others Rabindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, and Jamini Roy; ‘The Bombay School’ features the works of artists such as Pestonji Bomanji, Mahadev V. Dhurandhar, Antonio Xavier Trindade, and M. F. Pithawalla; ‘The Calcutta Group’ profiles artists like Gobardhan Ash, Sunil Madhav Sen, Prodosh Das Gupta, Gopal Ghose, and Rathin Maitra; ‘The Progressive Painters’ Association in Chennai and the Cholamandal Artists’ Village’ includes the works of K. C. S. Paniker, J. Sultan Ali, K. V. Haridasan, M. Senathipathi, and P. Gopinath. The artists who feature in ‘The Progressive Artists Group of Bombay’ include F. N. Souza, K. H. Ara, M. F. Husain, Sadanand Bakre, and S. H. Raza. Among the artists featured in ‘The Baroda Group’ are N. S. Bendre, Jeram Patel, Bhupen Khakhar, Gulammohammed Sheikh, and Jyotsna Bhatt. The penultimate section in the book ‘Artistic Footprints: Indian Icons’ showcases artists such as B. C. Sanyal, Amrita Sher-Gil, Somnath Hore, Jehangir Sabavala, V. S. Gaitonde, K. G. Subramanyan, Ram Kumar, Krishen Khanna, Tyeb Mehta, J. Swaminathan, Himmat Shah, A. Ramachandran, Paramjit Singh, Ganesh Pyne, Jogen Chowdhury, Manu Parekh, Anjolie Ela Menon, Jatin Das, Manjit Bawa, and Thota Vaikuntam. Among the artists featured in the final section, ‘Art Landscape Post Independence’, are India’s best-known contemporary artists such as Atul Dodiya, Subodh Gupta, Arpana Caur, Jayasri Burman, Rekha Rodwittiya, Ajay Desai, and Ranbir Kaleka.