A new master plan: DAG inaugurates new address in Mumbai with a massive show

DAG is all but bursting out of its frame. In Delhi, a second outpost of the 29-year-old gallery opens at Janpath in April. In Mumbai, its bright, three-level gallery in Kala Ghoda closed in 2020, but its new address is indisputably posher. Two galleries open today (March 20) at the Taj Mahal Palace hotel, with a show that DAG calls its most ambitious exhibition yet.

Iconic Masterpieces of Indian Modern Art may well be a compilation of the subcontinent’s greatest hits. The show spans 200 years and features 50 works, many of them rarely exhibited publicly, some never displayed in India before. There are works by Dutch, English and American artists who painted royal portraits, mythological scenes and landscapes from colonial India, and paintings by SH Raza, VS Gaitonde and other Modernist masters currently setting new records for Indian art at auctions around the world. There are works from Raja Ravi Varma’s studio, a portrait painted by Rabindranath Tagore, and a sculpture of an elephant-headed man by Jogen Chowdhury cast this year in Indonesia.

The show draws largely from DAG’s own collection, built over three decades. Ashish Anand, CEO and MD, says it represents the gallery’s new interests in Indian art of the 19th century, and in themed exhibitions. Why the Taj? What’s next? And how do Delhi and Mumbai compare, when it comes to fine art? Excerpts from an interview.

Around the world, galleries are opening in new neighbourhoods and aiming to be more diverse and public-friendly. Why open two galleries in a five-star hotel in one corner of Mumbai?

Around the world, galleries are indeed opening at new locations and these reflect the environment contemporary art perhaps requires. But galleries that deal with the masters continue to remain at high-street addresses. India’s infrastructure does not always permit convenient ways in which to park around galleries or to walk to them in reasonable comfort. We had a gallery in Delhi’s Hauz Khas Village for 25 years, as quirky an address as you can get. But the visitor experience got steadily poorer. We eventually moved to The Claridges for ease of access and to enhance viewing pleasure.

Showcasing 50 works spanning 200 years of Indian art must have been challenging…

Choosing the works was exhilarating; editing them for the final selection was exhausting. Some of these works came out of our collection, others had to be sourced from around the world — no easy task! Each work has an extraordinary story. Have you seen a more anguished portrait of Rabindranath Tagore than Ramkinkar Baij’s sculpture? A more impressive nude in modern art than [the untitled seated nude, 1962] by Souza? Many artists have never been exhibited in India, such as Edwin Lord Weeks, or Marius Bauer. Stefan Norblin’s work has been mostly at palaces in Rajasthan and Gujarat. Royal portraitist Frank Brooks is almost unheard-of in this country.

DAG is almost 30. How have Mumbai and Delhi, two cities that house your galleries, changed in this period? Have their art ecosystems grown more similar or dissimilar?

Mumbai and Delhi command the bulk of sales in India today. That said, Mumbaikars have a greater appreciation and knowledge of art; Delhi tops that with bigger homes that create an appetite for buying art. Delhi scores with the India Art Fair, and is the home of the national Lalit Kala Akademi. More artists have also moved to Delhi over the decades because of the availability of larger studios. But we can claim to have come of age [as a gallery-visiting public] only when all our metros, smaller cities and towns are at par when it comes to art appreciation and art infrastructure.

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AN OLD ART CONNECTION

The Taj Mahal Palace is no stranger to fine art. The hotel had its own gallery on the ground floor of what is now called the heritage wing, in the late 1950s. Artists such as MF Husain, VS Gaitonde, Ram Kumar and Jehangir Sabavala exhibited works there long before they became famous. The Taj gallery hosted Laxman Shreshtha’s first solo show, in 1963.

That gallery closed in the mid-1990s, but reopened in 2016, exhibiting 15 works from the vast Taj collection, including early paintings by Husain and Sabavala that the hotel acquired during the artists’ first shows.

Great art hangs prominently across the flagship property too. An expansive red Husain hangs behind a counter in the lobby. An SH Raza stands along the central staircase. Canvases by Ram Kumar, Laxman Pai and Rajesh Pullarwar are installed behind a bar. Sea Lounge houses abstract works by Gaitonde, and there are masterpieces by KK Hebbar, Anjolie Ela Menon, Vivan Sundaram and others in the banquet halls.