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KG Subramanyan - The Bombay and Calcutta progressives (39/72)

310 views · Published 29 September 2017 · 1:22 · Indexed 22 September 2026

Channel: Web of Stories - Life Stories of Remarkable People · 2017 · Entertainment

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To listen to more of KG Subramanyan’s stories, go to the playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVV0r6CmEsFz_IRc20qV_0JUy2n-oxtyy

KG Subramanyan (1924-2016) was an Indian artist. A graduate of the renowned art college of Kala Bhavana in Santiniketan, Subramanyan's work broke down the barrier between artist and artisan and drew upon myth and tradition for its inspiration. [Listener: Timothy Hyman]

TRANSCRIPT: [TH] While this process was going on in Santiniketan and Baroda for you, another kind of Indian art world was taking shape in Bombay and Delhi, with which you had relatively little contact.

No, I don’t have much contact, yes. Really speaking that was taking shape, not exactly at that time. It is later, and by that time I had already made my choices, and now I keep a certain amount of distance from the whole thing.

[TH] But weren’t the Bombay progressives happening in the late ’50s, early ’60s?

Well, I don’t know. The sort of Bombay progressives and the Calcutta progressives, somehow the art historians make much of it, but I don’t think too highly of them. That is my personal feeling, but then the whole question is that there were some very talented artists among them, and they tried to make a mark in various parts of the world, that I agree. But then those progressives were not terribly progressive, and their manifestos are not so terribly balanced forward-thinking manifestos. So really speaking, I do not give much importance to it, but it’s all right for the art writers to do. I have no quarrel with them.

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