The Last Harvest was an exhibition of Rabindranath Tagore's paintings to mark the 150th anniversary of Tagore's birth. It was commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, India and organised with the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA). It consisted of 208 paintings drawn from the collections of Visva Bharati and the NGMA. The exhibition was curated by art historian R. Siva Kumar. Asia Art Archive later classified the exhibition as a "world event". [1]
Within the 150th birth anniversary year it was conceived as three separate but similar exhibitions, and travelled simultaneously in three circuits. The first selection was shown at Museum of Asian Art, Berlin, [2] Asia Society, New York, [3] National Museum of Korea, [4] Seoul, Victoria and Albert Museum, [5] London, The Art Institute of Chicago, [6] Chicago, Petit Palais , [7] Paris, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Rome, National Visual Arts Gallery (Malaysia), [8] Kuala Lumpur, McMichael Canadian Art Collection, [9] Ontario, National Gallery of Modern Art, [10] New Delhi, National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai. [11]
An illustrated catalogue, titled The Last Harvest: Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore , with essays by international Tagore experts was published to accompany the exhibition. The book covered Tagore's art and other aspects of his work and life.
The Last Harvest received highly appreciable reviews across the globe. The British newspaper Daily Telegraph reported,"Tagore is such a fascinating figure that for the fans of his work the art will illuminate his poems and fictions; and for those coming cold, this (The Last Harvest) serves as a delightful introduction." The Independent rated the exhibition as one of the five best shows to have opened in London in 2011. [12] Mumbai Boss declared it the best museum exhibition saying, "At this gathering of about 100 works, one of the largest since his death, fluidly curated by historian R. Siva Kumar, the viewer was given a peek into a less assured Tagore, as a 60-something artist, who used his innate sense of linguistic artistry to permeate his at-times fantastical works. There were animals invented, idyllic landscapes, portraits and drawings that showed him to have an astonishing grasp of what it meant to endow a visual expression with the same raw beauty as its written equivalent." [13] Daily News and Analysis reported, "Tagore's imagination created paintings that underline his sheer genius. Yet, they were untitled, left to viewers to interpret." According to The Times of India , The Last Harvest was "A rare display of artworks by Tagore". "Like a skipping stone, Tagore’s style glanced off a variety of inspirations – wood-cuts, surrealist imagery, North American folk art – and yet was sharply distinctive. The Last Harvest, curated by Professor Raman Siva Kumar of Visva-Bharati University, presents one of the most elaborate exhibitions of Tagore’s paintings that we’ve seen." reported Firstpost.
Ratan Parimoo, born in Kashmir, is an art historian, art educator, pedagogue, artist and former director of the Lalbhai Dalpatbhai Museum, Ahmedabad. Ratan Parimoo was one of the founder members of Baroda Group.
The National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) is the premier art gallery under Ministry of Culture, Government of India. The main museum at Jaipur House in New Delhi was established on 29 March 1954 by the Government of India, with subsequent branches at Mumbai and Bangalore. Its collection of more than 17,000 works by 2000 plus artists includes artists such as Thomas Daniell, Raja Ravi Verma, Abanindranath Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore, Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Jamini Roy, Amrita Sher-Gil as well as foreign artists. Some of the oldest works preserved here date back to 1857. With 12,000 square meters of exhibition space, the Delhi branch is one of the world's largest modern art museums.
The works of Rabindranath Tagore consist of poems, novels, short stories, dramas, paintings, drawings, and music that Bengali poet and Brahmo philosopher Rabindranath Tagore created over his lifetime.
Jamini Roy was an Indian painter. He was honoured by the Government of India the award of Padma Bhushan in 1954. He remains one of the most famous pupils of Abanindranath Tagore, another praised Indian artist and instructor. Roy's highly simplified, flattened-out style, and reminiscent of European modern art was influenced by the “bazaar” paintings sold at Indian temples as talismans.
Nandalal Bose was one of the pioneers of modern Indian art and a key figure of Contextual Modernism.
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Ramkinkar Baij was an Indian sculptor and painter, one of the pioneers of modern Indian sculpture and a key figure of Contextual Modernism.
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Kalpathi Ganpathi "K.G." Subramanyan was an Indian artist. He was awarded the Padma Vibhushan in 2012.
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The modern Indian art movement in Indian painting is considered to have begun in Calcutta in the late nineteenth century. The old traditions of painting had more or less died out in Bengal and new schools of art were started by the British. Initially, protagonists of Indian art such as Raja Ravi Varma drew on Western traditions and techniques including oil paint and easel painting. A reaction to the Western influence led to a revival in primitivism, called as the Bengal school of art, which drew from the rich cultural heritage of India. It was succeeded by the Santiniketan school, led by Rabindranath Tagore's harking back to idyllic rural folk and rural life. Despite its country-wide influence in the early years, the importance of the school declined by the 'forties' and now it is as good as dead.
Raman Siva Kumar, known as R. Siva Kumar, is an Indian contemporary art historian, art critic, and curator. His major research has been in the area of early Indian modernism with special focus on the Santiniketan School. He has written several important books, lectured widely on modern Indian art and contributed articles to prestigious international projects such as the Art Journal, Grove Art Online or The Dictionary of Art, Oxford University Press.
Rabindra Chitravali is a 2011 four-volume set of books by art historian R. Siva Kumar that contains paintings of Rabindranth Tagore. These include about 1700 paintings in the Rabindra Bhavana and Kala Bhavana collections of Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan; and more than 300 paintings in the collection of the National Gallery of Modern Art and the collections at Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata; National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi and Bangalore; and Indian Museum, Kolkata.
National Gallery of Modern Art is an art gallery in Bangalore. It was inaugurated in the year 2009. It showcases modern Indian art and houses paintings by Raja Ravi Verma, Jamini Roy, Amrita Sher-Gil, Rabindranath Tagore and a large number of modern and contemporary artists. Equipped with an auditorium, a public art reference library, a cafeteria, and a museum shop cum facilitation block, the NGMA Bengaluru looks ahead to becoming a hub of art activities and a major cultural centre at Bengaluru. The gallery organizes and hosts talks on art and culture by speakers, seminars, film screenings as well as workshops and guided walks throughout the year.
Kala Bhavana is the fine arts faculty of Visva-Bharati University, in Shantiniketan, India. It is an institution of education and research in visual arts, founded in 1919, it was established by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore.
The Last Harvest: Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore is a book on Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) and his paintings edited by R. Siva Kumar. In 2011 it was produced in conjunction with the traveling exhibition The Last Harvest: Paintings of Rabindranath Tagore.
Santiniketan: The Making of a Contextual Modernism was an exhibition curated by R. Siva Kumar at the National Gallery of Modern Art in 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of India's Independence.
The following is a list of notable people associated withVisva- Bharati University and/or Santiniketan, a neighbourhood in Bolpur city in West Bengal, India:
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