Epochal: The Period of Pioneers

How did a generation of artists give form to the aspirations of a newly free India?

Epochal: The Period of Pioneers reimagines this pivotal moment in Indian art — challenging the conventional focus on a few dominant artists` groups and revealing instead a broad, dynamic network of practitioners engaged with both tradition and modernity. These networks were driven by the sites of existing and newly established art schools, as well as artist studios clustered in pockets around the country.

Spread across DAG Mumbai and Chatterjee & Lal in an inter-gallery collaboration, the exhibition brings together artworks and archival material to provide a re-telling of a period informed by its past and yet staking a firm claim to represent a young and independent India.

On view at DAG Mumbai, through 11 June 2026.

Monday – Saturday, 11:00 am to 7:00 pm.

What to Expect:

• Over 40 artists in one exhibition, from Abanindranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, Jamini Roy and M.V. Dhurandhar to S. H. Raza, F. N. Souza, V. S. Gaitonde and Jyoti Bhatt covering the 1950s-70s.

• Works that grappled with social, political and humanistic concerns that came to define artistic practice in the decades after Independence.

• An expanded understanding of what constituted fine art — with ceramics, textiles and design shown alongside painting and sculpture — reflecting how this generation built on the past while forging new directions for the future.

Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.

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