An Exhibition of the Popular Prints from 19th and 20th Century Curated by Arka Prava Bose.
Windows to the Gods, an exhibition of up to ninety antique mythological chromolithographs and oleographs by Raja Ravi Varma, M. V. Dhurandhar, Bamapada Banerjee, and many lesser-known painters of the so-called “Calendar Prints” from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Aside from the prints of well-known painters, the exhibition featured the early chromolithographs of the Poona Chitrashala Press, one of India’s earliest fine art lithographic presses founded in 1878. Raja Ravi Varma, who founded his own lithographic press in 1894 to disseminate his expensive oil paintings among the common people via oleographs, popularised and elevated the aesthetic stature of popular prints. The financial success of the Ravi Varma Prints inspired many outstanding painters of the subsequent generation to publish oleographs of their works.
The embellished oleographs created by some unknown women were the most appealing element of the exhibition. Women from rich families had a practise of decorating the prints of gods and goddesses with stitching in their spare time. Elegantly made, the embellished prints highlight an often-overlooked facet of the utilization of popular prints in India.
The prints on display are from the Kalakriti Archives’ Prshant Lahoti Collection.
17 May 2019 to 17 June 2019 at Kalakriti Art Gallery, Hyderabad.