Masters in Madras: Apparao Galleries showcases works by celebrated modern and contemporary artists

It is not often that you get to stand in front of paintings by A Ramachandran, Anju Dodiya, Arpita Singh, Anjolie Ela Menon, FN Souza, Ganesh Pyne, Himmat Shah, KG Subramanyan, MF Husain, Nicholas Roerich, Ravinder Reddy, SH Raza, Sakti Burman, and more. These are after all, the modern masters who have shaped and inspired a generation of artists.

Access to their mastery now opens at the Apparao Galleries showcase. Their Masters in Madras exhibit, presented as part of their ongoing exhibition for Contemporary Now, is underway.

For instance, in a series of sketches by Ganesh Pyne, the drawings seem to have been made as precursors to his paintings, almost like notes or fragments of ideas jotted down before embarking on a larger work. Some carry scribbles in English or Bengali, while others contain poems that, when read closely, seem to reveal intimate details about the artist’s life and inner world. In one of the works, a poem reads:

 “What we are to our inward vision, and what man appears to be… can only be expressed by way of myth. Myth is more individual and expresses life more precisely than does science.”

Artworks exhibited at Apparao Gallery
| Photo Credit:
SRINATH M

Speaking about the collection, curator and director of Apparao Galleries, Sharan Apparao says, “We have three beautiful Nicholas Roerich works that were studies for an opera in London that never ever happened. These are not things you get to see. We have these watercolours by Sakti Burman, and then we have big works from the 1970s, from when he started doing the technique of marbling, which show you how the technique evolved. Then we also have two very iconic paintings by Ravinder Reddy.”

There are also figurative artist and modernist Arpita Singh’s works, rendered in watercolour, ink and acrylic. Some reflect her engagement with folk-art traditions, while others foreground her feminist perspective. One such work, Black (2010), for instance, depicts a woman dressed in a sari, offering a glimpse into Singh’s exploration of the female figure and its place within her visual vocabulary. 

A series of his colourful portraits by FN Souza
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT

There are also works by FN Souza, one of the major voices of the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group. A series of his colourful portraits reflects his longstanding engagement with distortion, where mismatched eyes, mouths and facial structures become a defining feature of his work. Through these distorted figures, Souza challenged conventional ideas of beauty and representation in Western landscape. 

Russian polymath and painter Nicholas Roerich’s costume series is a delight to the eyes. Created around 1919- 1920, they depict costume sketches for The Tale of Tsar Saltan, an opera by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, with one of the designs depicting the character Tsarevich Gvidon. His paintings, mostly Tempara works, depict his fascination with pagan history and Slavic folk costumes – like the winter Kaftans, the headgears and the traditional trims. 

Artworks by artist Sakti Burman
| Photo Credit:
SRINATH M

Together, these works offer a rare glimpse into the diverse practices and visual languages of some of the world’s most influential modern masters. From intimate sketches and handwritten poems to experiments with distortion, colour and form, it brings together different moments in art history under one roof. 

Masters In Madras is on till August 14 at Apparao Galleries, Thousand Lights, from Tuesday to Saturday between 3pm and 6.30pm.