Drawn like moths to the flame, artists from around the world converged on Paris in the 1950s. The painters of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group were no different, many finding their way there at the beginning of the decade. So began an important period in the development of Indian modernism, where indigenous aesthetics blended with contemporary European practices. The main proponents being Sayed Haider Raza, Francis Newton Souza, Syed Sadequain and Akbar Padamsee, as well as the Nepali painter and scholar Lain Singh Bangdel, (whose Estate is represented by Rossi & Rossi.)
These artists all fostered close ties with one another, and with other artists of the Asian diaspora such as Affandi and would regularly exhibit together and with other international artists in renowned Parisian galleries.
We are exhibiting paintings by the most significant South Asian artists working in Paris in the 1950s and '60s, including period work by Souza, Raza, Sadequain, Laxman Pai and Bangdel, alongside archival material relating to the period.
