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Abstract
In 1958, Gallery One, London, staged an exhibition titled, ‘Seven Indian Painters in Europe’ featuring work by some of the most prestigious contemporary artists of South Asian origin. In 2017, the Whitworth Art Gallery revisited this earlier exhibition, staging ‘South Asian Modernists 1953–1963ʹ. Visiting this recent show prompted a reconsideration of the 1958 exhibition, its content and reception, and a reflection upon the ways in which South Asian artists exhibiting in London during the 1950s and ’60s have and have not been included within narratives of British art, then and now.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 As cited in Araeen, ‘Conversation with Avinash Chandra’, 70.
2 Mullins, FN Souza, 19.
3 Central to this narrative is Araeen, The Other Story. See also Wainwright, ‘Francis Newton Souza’ and Chambers, Black Artists in British Art.
4 For example, Garlake, New Art, New World mentions only Souza, once, and no South Asian artists are referenced in Hyman, The Battle for Realism. However, discussions of Souza within a British context are given in Jolivette, Landscape, Art and Identity; Crippa (ed.), All too Human, and Salter, Art and Masculinity.
5 Hall, ‘Black Diaspora Artists in Britain’, 5.
6 Wraight, ‘On galleries’.
7 The exact number of Souza’s solo shows at Gallery One is uncertain. See the Whitworth Art Gallery, South Asian Modernists, 17. However, Mullins notes that Souza had solo shows at Gallery One in 1956, 57, 59, 60 and 61. See Mullins, FN Souza, 25.
8 Chambers, Black Artists in British Art, 28.
9 For more on Shemza, see Dadi (ed.), Anwar Jalal Shemza.
10 Shemza (1989) Anwar Jalal Shemza, 66.
11 Mercer, ‘Black Atlantic Abstraction’, 187.
12 Mullins, FN Souza, 7–8.
13 Butcher, Seven Painters in Europe, 2.
14 For more on the Progressive Artists Group, see Bean, Midnight to the Boom; Brown, Art for a Modern India; Dalmia, The Making of Modern Indian Art; Jumabhoy and Hui Tan (eds.), The Progressive Revolution; Khullar, Worldly Affiliations; and Mitter, Indian Art.
15 Souza, as cited in Apte, ‘Indian Modernism, 111.
16 Anon., ‘Seven Painters from India’.
17 Anon., Ibid.
18 Anon., ‘Seven Indian Artists’ Work Are on Show in Soho’, India News, 2 August 1958, Gallery One press cuttings album no.3, Victor Musgrave Collection, Tate Archives, TGA 8714/7. For an image of this work see https://www.christies.com/privatesales/2015/south-asian-modern-and-contemporary-art#about-section, accessed 8 December 2020.
19 Anon., ‘Seven Painters from India’.
20 Butcher, ‘Indian Painting’, 7.
21 Butcher, Ibid., 7.
22 Butcher, Ibid., 7.
23 A.D.B.S. [David Sylvester], ‘Seven Indian Painters’.
24 A.D.B.S. [David Sylvester], Ibid.
25 Wallis, ‘An Indian Septet’. See also The Critics, 5.
26 Wallis, Ibid.
27 The Critics, 3-4.
28 Newton, ‘EAST and WEST’, 8.
29 Wallis, ‘An Indian Septet’.
30 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 85.
31 Bhabha, Ibid., 86.
32 Bhabha, Ibid., 89.
33 Laws, ‘Poetic Painting’.
34 Mitter, ‘Decentering Modernism’, 537.
35 Berger, ‘An Indian Painter’, 8.
36 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 37.
37 Kasmin, ‘Life story’.
38 Whitworth Art Gallery, South Asian Modernists, 1.
39 Amrita Jhaveri, email correspondence with the author, 27 April 2018.
40 Gleadowe, ‘Inhabiting Exhibition History’, 34.
41 Harrison, Transition, 11–21.
42 Thrown Bull, 1962, is recorded as Trussed Bull, 1961, by the Tyeb Mehta Foundation, correspondence with the author, 27 November 2020. The title and date used here are those given in Whitworth Art Gallery, South Asian Modernists, 10.
43 Read, ‘New Aspects’, unpaginated.
44 Whitworth Art Gallery, South Asian Modernists, 8.
45 See Mellor, ‘Existentialism’.
46 Bhabha, The Location of Culture, 123.
47 See Chester, Border and Conflict in South Asia.
48 Tan and Kudaisya, The Aftermath of Partition, 84.
49 Khan, The Great Partition, xxvii.
50 Chambers, Black Artists in British Art, 37.
51 See New North and South.
52 Whitworth Art Gallery, South Asian Modernists, unpaginated.
53 Only one painting by Souza (The Emperor, 1958) was featured in the exhibition ‘Transition: The London Art Scene in the Fifties’, at the Barbican Art Gallery, 2002; this was the only work by a non-white artist in the exhibition.
54 Harrison, Transition, 20.
55 Fisher, ‘The Other Story’.
56 Kumar, ‘Modern Indian Art’, 19.
57 Butcher, ‘The Image and Souza’, 176.
58 Fisher, ‘The Other Story’.
59 Johns, ‘There’s No Such Thing’.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Alice Correia
Dr Alice Correia is an independent art historian. Her research examines late twentieth-century British art, with a specific focus on African, Caribbean and South Asian immigrant and diaspora artists. In 2017 she was a mid-career Fellow at the Paul Mellon Centre for the Study of British Art, where she initiated her current research project, Articulating British Asian Art Histories. Her articles and reviews have appeared in Art History; British Art Studies; Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art and Third Text. She is co-chair of the British Art Network’s Black British Art research group. From January 2021 she will be Research Curator at Touchstones Rochdale.
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