The painting exhibition titled ‘Relive the Ideals of the Mahatma through Art’ will not only provide an opportunity to the residents of London for a rendezvous with the milestone events from the Mahatma’s life but will also share lessons from his life. The exhibition in London will be the seventh in a series of similar exhibitions organized by Exim Bank to observe the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. The first exhibition in the series was held in Delhi and inaugurated on the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi on January 30th (Martyrs’ Day). The second exhibition was held on the death of anniversary of Kasturba Gandhi on February 22nd at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune. The third exhibition in the series was held at Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, coinciding with the anniversary of Dandi march. The fourth and fifth exhibitions coincided with India’s Independence Day, and were held at the Victoria Memorial Hall, Kolkata and Visva-Bharati, Santiniketan. The sixth exhibition will be held in mid-September at Mani Bhawan, Mumbai.
The exhibitions have together received more than 10,000 visitors from across the world who has appreciated the paintings in traditional art forms. The exhibition is unique because of the creative process that was involved. Exim Bank had engaged traditional artists from different nooks and corners of the country to develop these paintings, based on various events from Mahatma Gandhi’s life. The exhibition provides a retrospect on some historical events and highlights important lessons from Mahatma Gandhi’s life. The artists representing 12 different traditional art forms [hailing from Dahanu in Maharashtra (for Warli painting), Kotra Sultanabad near Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh (for Gond painting), Kamrup in Assam (for North East weaving), Chandanpur in Odisha (for Pattachitra painting), Srinagar in J&K (for Papier Mache art), Triplicane in Tamil Nadu (for Tanjore painting), Mathura in Uttar Pradesh (for Sanjhi craft), Paschim Medinipur in West Bengal (for Pattua painting), Srikalahasthi in Andhra Pradesh (for Kalamkari painting), Ahmedabad in Gujarat (for Mata-Ni-Pachedi), Bhilwara in Rajasthan (for Phad painting) and Madhubani in Bihar (for Madhubani painting)] were commissioned for the project, and developed 25 exclusive paintings for Exim Bank.
On the genesis of the idea about the paintings, Mr. David Rasquinha, Managing Director, Exim Bank, said, “We shared the concept about the project and left it to the artists to develop the paintings according to their own interpretation of important events from Mahatma Gandhi’s life. All the paintings have a story to tell and the artists worked on them for over two months. The paintings reflect the vision of the common people of India, who played the most significant role in Gandhi’s journey from a lawyer to the Father of the Nation.”
In Association with Export-Import Bank of India (Exim Bank)