Jyotindra Jain | |
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Born | |
Education | University of Mumbai University of Vienna |
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Relatives | Jyotsna Milan (sister) |
Jyotindra Jain (born 5 June 1943) is an Indian art historian and cultural historian, and museologist. A scholar on folk and ritual arts of India, he was the director of the National Crafts Museum, New Delhi, member secretary and professor (cultural archives), at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi, [1] and also professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. [2] [3] He has published a number of books on Indian folk art, including, Ganga Devi: Tradition and Expression in Mithila Painting, Other Masters: Five Contemporary Folk and Tribal Artists of India and Kalighat Painting: Images from a Changing World.
He has been an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow, a Homi Bhabha Fellow and a visiting professor at the Center for the Study for World Religions, Harvard University, US, and was awarded the Prince Claus Awards in 1998. [1] [4]
Jain was born in Indore. [4] His older sister is poet Jyotsna Milan. [5] He did his B.A. from the University of Bombay (now known as University of Mumbai), in 1963, followed by an M. A. in Ancient Indian Culture in 1965, also from the university. Next he received an Austrian Government Post-Graduate Scholarship (1970–1972); this helped him do a Certificate in museology from the University of Vienna in 1972, which led to a Ph.D. in Anthropology, in 1972, and ethnographic field research in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Orissa. [6]
Starting in 1975 and till 1978, he conducted field work in Gujarat to set up a Museum of Folk Art for the Shreyas Foundation. Later, as an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at Heidelberg University (1972–1979), he taught for one year at the South Asia Institute at the university. [6]
In 1984, he became the director of the National Crafts Museum, New Delhi.
In 1986 and 1989, he received fellowships from the Asian Cultural Council which allowed him to visit museums, observe the arts culture, and meet with museum specialists in the United States.
Over the years, he has published a number of books including, Ganga Devi: Tradition and Expression in Mithila Painting (1996); Other Masters: Five Contemporary Folk and Tribal Artists of India (1998); Picture Showmen: Insights into the Narrative Tradition in Indian Art (1998); Kalighat Painting: Images from a Changing World (1999); Indian Popular Culture: ‘The Conquest of the World as Picture (2004), and India’s popular Culture. Iconic spaces and fluid images (2007).
A member-secretary of IGNCA, Delhi, he curated a retrospective exhibition of photographs by Lala Deen Dayal at IGNCA, in 2010. [7]
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Indian painting has a very long tradition and history in Indian art, though because of the climatic conditions very few early examples survive. The earliest Indian paintings were the rock paintings of prehistoric times, such as the petroglyphs found in places like the Bhimbetka rock shelters. Some of the Stone Age rock paintings found among the Bhimbetka rock shelters are approximately 10,000 years old.
Madhubani art is a style of painting practiced in the Mithila region of India and Nepal. It is named after the Madhubani district of Bihar, India, which is where it originated. Artists create these paintings using a variety of mediums, including their own fingers, or twigs, brushes, nib-pens, and matchsticks. The paint is created using natural dyes and pigments. The paintings are characterised by their eye-catching geometrical patterns. There is ritual content for particular occasions, such as birth or marriage, and festivals, such as Holi, Surya Shasti, Kali Puja, Upanayana, and Durga Puja.
Kalighat painting, Kalighat Patachitra, or Kalighat Pat is style of Indian paintings which originated in the 19th century. It was first practiced by a group of specialized scroll painters known as the patuas in the vicinity of the Kalighat Kali Temple in Kolkata, in the present Indian state of West Bengal. Composed of bold outlines, vibrant colour tones, and minimal background details, these paintings and drawings were done on both hand-made and machine manufactured paper. The paintings depicted mythological stories, figures of Hindu gods and goddesses, as well as scenes from everyday life and society, thereby recording a socio-cultural landscape which was undergoing a series of transitions during the 19th and early 20th century, when the Kalighat pat reached its pinnacle.
Haku Vajubhai Shah was an Indian painter, Gandhian, cultural anthropologist and author on folk and tribal art and culture. His art belonged to the Baroda Group and his works are considered in the line of artists who brought themes of folk or tribal art to Indian art.
The National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum (NHHM) commonly known as National Crafts Museum in New Delhi is one of the largest crafts museums in India. It is run by the Ministry of Textiles, Government of India. The museum is situated on the corner of the Pragati Maidan, facing the Purana Quila complex. In 2015, the Government of India announced that a Hastkala (handicrafts) Academy would be established in the museum premises, converting some galleries into classrooms. Initial renovations destroyed one of the museum's most well-known artifacts, a room of murals painted by Madhubani artist Ganga Devi, leading to widespread criticism. As of 2019, renovations are still ongoing.
The crafts of India are diverse, rich in history, culture and religion. The craft of each state in India reflect the influence of different empires. Throughout centuries, crafts have been embedded as a culture and tradition within rural communities.
Gayatri Sinha is an art critic and curator based in New Delhi, India. Her primary areas of research are around the structures of gender and iconography, media, economics and social history. She founded Critical Collective, a forum for thinking about conceptual frames within art history and practice in contemporary India.
Vidya Dehejia is a retired academic and the Barbara Stoler Miller Professor Emerita of Indian and South Asian Art at Columbia University. She has published 24 books and numerous academic papers on the art of South Asia, and has curated many exhibitions on the same theme.
Yashodhar Mathpal is an Indian archaeologist, painter, curator, Gandhian and Rock art conservationist. He is most known for his study of cave art, especially in Bhimbetka rock shelters, Barechhina (Uttarakhand) and Kerala. He founded the Folk Culture Museum in Bhimtal, Nainital district, in 1983.
Jasleen Dhamija (1933-2023) was an Indian textile art historian, crafts expert and former UN worker. Based in Delhi, she was best known for her pioneering research on the handloom and handicraft industry, especially history of textiles and costumes. She was professor of living cultural traditions at the University of Minnesota. Over the years, during her career as a textile revivalist and scholar, she authored several books on textiles, including Sacred Textiles of India (2014).
Eberhard Fischer is a German art historian, ethnologist and author based in Switzerland. He is a former Director and the incumbent President of Rietberg Society, Switzerland. Fischer was honored by the Government of India, in 2012, with the fourth highest Indian civilian award of Padma Shri.
Jangarh Singh Shyam (1962–2001) was a pioneering contemporary Indian artist credited with being the creator of a new school of Indian art called Jangarh Kalam. His work has been exhibited widely the world over including Bhopal, Delhi, Tokyo and New York. His most notable exhibitions include the Magiciens de la terre in Paris (1989) and Other Masters curated by Jyotindra Jain at the Crafts Museum, New Delhi (1998). His 1988 piece Landscape with Spider sold for $31,250 at Sotheby's, New York, in 2010—a first for an adivasi artist. Jangarh had also painted the interiors of the Legislative Assembly of Madhya Pradesh, the Vidhan Bhavan, and the dome of Bhopal's Bharat Bhavan—one of the most prestigious museums of tribal and contemporary Indian art. He was among the first Gond artists to use paper and canvas for his paintings, thereby inaugurating what is now known as Jangarh Kalam.
Bhajju Shyam is an Indian artist, belonging to the Gond-Pardhaan community of Madhya Pradesh. He was awarded India's fourth highest civilian award the Padma Shri in 2018.
Ganga Devi was an Indian painter, considered by many as one of the leading exponents of Madhubani painting tradition. She is credited with popularizing the Madhubani painting outside India. She was born in 1928 in Mithila in the Indian state of Bihar in a Kayastha family and took to the traditional painting craft, specialising in the kachni style. She traveled abroad with her art and was a part of the Festival of India in the United States, which yielded a number of paintings under the title, America series, including Moscow Hotel, Festival of American Folk Life, and Ride in a Roller Coaster. The Government of India awarded her the National Master Craftsman Award and followed it up with the fourth highest civilian award of Padma Shri in 1984.
Brijinder Nath Goswamy is an Indian art critic, art historian and a former vice chairman of the Sarabhai Foundation of Ahmedabad, which runs the Calico Museum of Textiles. Goswamy is best known for his scholarship on Pahari painting and Indian miniature paintings. He is the author of over 20 books on arts and culture, including Sakti Burman: A Private Universe, a monograph on the life and works of Sakti Burman, renowned Bengali painter and Masters of Indian Painting 1100-1900, a treatise on Indian miniature art. The Government of India awarded him the fourth highest civilian award of the Padma Shri in 1998 and followed it up with the third highest honour of the Padma Bhushan in 2008.
Neelamani Devi is an Indian craftswoman and master potter from Manipur. Her creations have been the theme of two documentary films; Mittee aur Manab by renowned filmmaker, Mani Kaul, and Nilamani: The Master Potter of Manipur, by Aribam Syam Sharma. The TV Series, Mahabharata also featured her works on one of the episodes. The Government of India awarded her the fourth highest civilian honour of the Padma Shri, in 2007, for her contributions to the art of pottery making.
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Sita Devi (1914–2005) was an Indian artist, specializing in painting in the Madhubani tradition. She is one of the most well-known Madhubani artists from India, and was one of the first to receive national recognition for the art form, receiving a number of awards for her work including the Padma Shri in 1981, as well as the Bihar Ratna Samman in 1984. She was influential in activism for local development in her village of Jitwarpur, in the state of Bihar, and taught Madhubani art to local residents, especially women, during her career in an effort to encourage financial stability. Her paintings have been praised for their individual style, particularly their use of color, have been widely exhibited, and are archived in India as well as in museums in France, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.