Modern art comes to the Museum

The Jehangir Nicholson gallery of modern art opens in the east annex of the CSMVS, next week. The guide on what you can expect to find

Modern art comes to the Museum

The Jehangir Nicholson gallery of modern art opens in the east annex of the CSMVS, next week. The guide on what you can expect to find

From next week onwards, you can stop by the Museum to catch art works by some of the most influential modern artists from the contemporary art scene in the city.

The Modern Art Gallery at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu
Sangrahalaya will be open to the public from April 12, 2011.
Pics/ Sameer Markande

The inaugural exhibition titled Six Decades Celebrating the Bombay Artists from the Jehangir Nicholson Collection will showcase works by artists including Sadanandji Bakre, Prabhakar, Atul Dodiya, Akbar Padamsee, Jehangir Sabavala, Laxman Shreshtha, B Vithal and Francis Newton Souza, the founding member of the Progressive Artists' Group of Bombay.

"Through the gallery, we hope to incorporate aspects of art into the museum that are not limited to archeology," says Sabyasachi Mukherjee, Director, CSMVS.

The gallery, which is located on the second floor of the east wing of the Museum, was originally built as a storage space. The wing will also house a research centre of modern and contemporary Indian art, as well as the over 700 works done between 1968 and 2001 by close to 250 artists, courtesy the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, which is from the personal collection of Jehangir Nicholson, an avid collector whose name is considered synonymous with art.

Struggle and hope
Among the works that caught our eye was a series of four oil-on-canvas paintings done by artist Altaf Mohammed titled Workers. The works mange to evocatively capture the anonymity and angst of survival.
Nicholson's collection carries not just the story of several art movements in various parts of the country, but is also prized for capturing individual artists' journeys through different phases. The exhibition will change every six months.

Opens 12 April
At Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, 159/61, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Fort. Call 22844519 Six Decades Celebrating the Bombay Artists from the Jehangir Nicholson Collection will be on display till August 28, 2011 (closed on Mondays).

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