Mapin Catalogue_NOV 2022

Mapin Publishing Pvt. Ltd

Publishers of quality illustrated books on art and culture of India

NEW, FORTHCOMING AND RECENT

The Planetary King: Humayun Padshah, 1 Inventor and Visionary on the Mughal Throne

Paper Trails: Modern Indian Works on Paper 2 from the Gaur Collection

Courtyard Houses of India 3

Silver and Gold: Visions of Arcadia 4

Crafting Culture: The Amrapali Collection of 5 Indian Decorative Arts

Sayed Haider Raza 6

Ganesh Haloi: A Rhythm Surfaces in the Mind 7

Jali: Lattice of Divine Light in Mughal Architecture 8

Bombay Talkies: An Unseen History of 9 Indian Cinema

Ellora: Cross-Fertilization of Style in Buddhist, 10 Brahmanical and Jain Cave Temples

Devotion and Splendour: The Story of 11 the Caves at Ajanta Whose Ramayana Is It Anyway? 12 Indian Crafts Interiors 13

Resurgent Modernism: The Architecture of 14 Namita Singh

Learning from Patna Riverfront 15 Shringara of Shrinathji: From the Collection of 16 the Late Gokal Lal Mehta

Incredible Treasures: 17 UNESCO World Heritage Sites of India

Karkhana: A Studio in Rajasthan 18

learning from india series Learning from Ahmedabad 19 Learning from Delhi 19 Learning from Mumbai 19 Sense and Sensation: Ganesh Haloi 2021 20 Bindu: Space and Time in Raza’s Vision 20 Monsoon Mosques 21 One Continuous Line 21 India’s Film Poster Heritage 22 Mutable: Ceramic and Clay Art in 22 India Since 1947

art & history

384 pages, 273 images 9.75 x 11.75” (247.6 x 298 mm), hc ISBN: 978-93-85360-98-5 3950 | $70 | £49 Nov. 2022 |

Co-published with Aga Khan Trust for Culture

The Planetary King Humayun Padshah, Inventor and Visionary on the Mughal Throne

Humayun, the son of Babur and the second Mughal ruler, reigned in Agra from 1530 to 1540 and then in Delhi from 1555 to 1556. Until now, his numerous achievements, including winning back the throne of Hindustan, have not been well recorded. Humayun neither wrote an autobiography nor had a historian to glorify him; the eccentric accounts of his historian Khwandamir elude general comprehension.

The Planetary King follows Humayun’s travels and campaigns during the political and social disturbances of the early sixteenth century. It delves into Humayun’s extraordinary social and intellectual life; demystifies his magico-scientific world view, draws attention to his deep involvement with literature, poetry, painting, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, astrology, occultism and extraordinary inventions, and offers a new analysis of Humayun’s mausoleum as the posthumous sum of his visions and dreams.

Bringing this fascinating exploration to life in vivid detail, this volume includes hundreds of beautifully reproduced photographs and illustrations—from reconstructions of Humayun’s buildings to depictions of live events. The book accompanies the new site museum at Humayun’s tomb created by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture upon the culmination of two decades of conservation work on the World Heritage Site.

“Professor Koch has brought her unparalleled knowledge of Mughal history and artistic culture into a sharply penetrating focus on Humayun’s career and his many contributions to architecture, science, and literature besides his role in creating a Mughal ruling ideology.”

—R. D. McChesney, Professor Emeritus, New York University

Ebba Koch, pre-eminent art and architectural historian, has been a professor at the Institute of Art History in Vienna, Austria and has taught at the universities of Oxford and Harvard. She specializes in the art and culture of the Great Mughals of South Asia and their artistic connections to Central Asia, Iran and Europe and is considered a leading authority on Mughal architecture. In 2016, Koch became the advisor to the Aga Khan Trust for Culture, India. She has published numerous papers in journals and volumes on Indian and Islamic architecture and art, which also address cultural issues of interest to political, social and economic historians. Her volume The Complete Taj Mahal (2006/2012) has become the standard work on the subject. She recently edited together with Ali Anooshahr the collective volume The Mughal Empire from Jahangir to Shah Jahan (2019).

modern & contemporary art

232 pages, 149 illustrations 9 x 10″ (228.6 x 254 mm), hc ISBN: 978-93-94501-07-2 ₹2500 | $45 | £35 Nov. 2022 |

Exhibition: Sept. 27–Dec. 10, 2022

Venue: Grinnell College Museum of Art

Published in association with Grinnell College Museum of Art, USA

Paper Trails

Modern Indian Works on Paper from the Gaur Collection

India is a nation of conflicting realities where the old and the new, the traditional and modern regularly coexist. Visual narratives are vital resources in telling stories and facilitating communication. Here, the artists are concerned not solely with telling their own tales but also with exploring what it means to live in a nation steeped in tradition.

Within the context of modern and contemporary India, works on paper offered artists a way of cultivating transnational modernist expression while continuing to explore the potential of a medium that had deeper roots in older artistic traditions native to the subcontinent. This volume features over 100 watercolours, drawings, etchings, sketches, and lithographs by senior Indian modernists, born primarily before the 1950s and who came of age in the decades directly following Independence in 1947. These artists span the transition from colonial to postcolonial India, embracing both realism and abstraction, exploring complex metaphors, and making political statements that directly engage India’s past, present, and future.

With contributions by Tamara Sears, Rebecca M. Brown, Jeffrey Wechsler, Darielle Mason, Paula Sengupta, Michael Mackenzie, Emma Osle, Kishore Singh and Swathi Gorle, this book accompanies the exhibition at Grinnell College Museum of Art drawn from the collection of Umesh and Sunanda Gaur and curated by Tamara Sears.

Dr. Tamara Sears is Associate Professor of Art History at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Dr. Michael Mackenzie is Professor of Art History at Grinnell College. Dr. Paula Sengupta is Professor at the Department of Graphics-Printmaking at the Faculty of Visual Arts, Rabindra Bharati University, Kolkata. Emma Oslé is an advanced Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Art History at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Dr. Darielle Mason is the Stella Kramrisch Curator and Head of the Department of South Asian Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and adjunct professor of the History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Rebecca M. Brown, Professor and Chair of the Department of the History of Art at Johns Hopkins University, is a scholar of colonial and post-1947 South Asian visual culture and politics. Jeffrey Wechsler has been Senior Curator at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, retiring in 2013 and has authored numerous publications on art. Kishore Singh is a former jounalist and editor, who has been a columnist, documentary scriptwriter and also authored several books. Swathi Gorle is an advanced Ph.D. candidate in the department of Art History at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey.

architecture

468 pages, 352 photographs, 333 drawings and 18 maps 10 x 10” (254 x 254 mm), hc ISBN: 978-93-85360-09-1 4500 | $75 | £55 Nov. 2022 |

Courtyard Houses of India

Yatin Pandya

Indian architecture is not an object in space; it integrates space within the object, where the built and the unbuilt become counterpoints to vitalize each other. The alchemy of the two sustains the space and the life within. The void within the built—the courtyard—lies at the genesis of the urban dwelling form in India across geography and time. In ancient Indian sciences, the courtyard assumes the central position as Brahmasthana, the nucleus of the living environment. It provided for an open-to-sky outdoor space while being away from the public eye and thus suited an introverted lifestyle. In this book, the author traces the metaphysical, mythical, socio-cultural, environmental and spatial roles of the courtyard in the domestic architecture of India—from early civilization and Vedic times to Islamic and colonial influences.

This volume documents traditional and vernacular courtyard dwelling types across India within diverse climatic, cultural as well as geographic zones, namely the western (Gujarat, Rajasthan, Maharashtra), southern (Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Goa), eastern (Bihar, West Bengal), central (Madhya Pradesh) and northern (Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, and the Union Territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh) regions of the country. It then discerns the spatial elements constituting the court, and the arts and crafts as well as the elements integral to the court.

Illustrated with splendid photographs and representative drawings, the book attempts to understand the presence and resolution, continued use and adaptation as well as the diverse interpretations and abstractions of the courtyard.

Yatin Pandya is an author, activist, academician, researcher as well as a practising architect with his firm FOOTPRINTS E.A.R.T.H. He has been involved with city planning, urban design, mass housing, architecture, interior design and product design as well as conservation projects. Pandya has also authored Concepts of Space in Traditional Indian Architecture (Mapin, 2005) and Elements of Spacemaking (Mapin, 2007), written numerous papers in national and international journals and produced several documentary films on architecture. The recipient of numerous national and international awards for design, research and dissemination, he is a visiting faculty at the National Institute of Design and CEPT University, and a guest lecturer at various universities in India and abroad.

crafts, design & fashion

264 pages, 200 images 9.9 x 12.5” (252 x 318 mm), hc

ISBN: 978-93-85360-88-6 2950 | $65 | £45 Spring 2023 |

Published in association with Amrapali Museum, Jaipur

Silver and Gold: Visions of Arcadia

The Amrapali Collection of Indian Jewellery

For as long as Indians have adorned themselves, they have sought to wear jewels that conveyed beauty, power and status. Jewels are believed to provide protection, hope, luck and well-being. More than 40 years ago, two friends, united by a passion for the decorative arts, embarked on an exploration of these unique jewels of India. They were motivated by the everyday jewels of the people in the villages—to discover the sources of their inspiration and to unravel the complex ritual of adornment that resulted in ornaments being fabricated for every part of the body, from the top of the head to the toes. What resulted were visions of Arcadia, leading to the creation of the Amrapali Collection of Indian Jewellery, one of the largest collections of pastoral silver jewellery in the world.

The manifold communities that this collection represents come from different religions, with linguistic differences and diverse cultural sensibilities, but the land that the jewels encompass is geographically contiguous. Beyond adornment, the Amrapali collection presents a vision of harmony with nature, with forms and motifs that draw upon nature and the cosmos, and materials like shells, grass and bone. They exhibit the amazing technical expertise of simple gold- and silversmiths. This volume presents the jewels in all their glory, not as museum objects or as relics of the past, but as a visual language communicating design, aesthetics, tradition and above all, the artistic expression of adorning the body.

Dr. Usha R. Balakrishnan is the Chief Curator of the World Diamond Museum and a pre-eminent historian of Indian jewellery. She is the author or coauthor of several publications, including Dance of the Peacock: Jewellery Traditions of India, Jewels of the Nizams, and, most recently, Treasures of the Deccan: Jewels of the Nizams and her curatorial projects include ‘India: Jewels that Enchanted the World’ at the Moscow Kremlin Museum, ‘Enduring Splendor: The Jewelry of India’s Thar Desert’ at the Fowler Museum, Los Angeles, and ‘Shringara: Adornment’ at the CSMVS Museum, Mumbai.

crafts & lifestyle

232 pages, 200 images 9.9 x 12.5” (252 x 318 mm), hc

ISBN: 978-93-85360-89-3 2950 | $65 | £45 Spring 2023 |

Published in association with Amrapali Museum, Jaipur

Crafting Culture

The Amrapali Collection of Indian Decorative Arts

Over millennia, as traditions were forged and materials harnessed, the human capacity for decorating everyday life resulted in myriad manifestations across objects. A vision to capture the subcontinent’s material culture resulted in the creation of the Amrapali Museum, Jaipur.

It is testament to the skills of craftsmanship, materiality and aesthetics that have dictated the form, shape and functionality of our everyday art objects.

Amidst the tumultuous timeline of our past, what was saved and why was it saved are crucial questions that help us understand the changing nature of everyday objects. This volume shines a light on the place of objects in times of transition, examining the Amrapali Museum’s rare collection through filters of shape, typology, aesthetics, craftsmanship, materiality and use. Through its holdings, the author compares and contextualizes objects with other related examples across time periods and centres of production, helping us map crucial indicators such as the evolution of shape and design, advancement of crafts and changing aesthetics. Through this volume, the preservation of these fragments from the past now allows us a rare opportunity to celebrate India’s civilization and its crafts culture.

Pramod Kumar K.G., an independent scholar and researcher, is the co-founder of Eka Archiving Services, India’s first museum advisory firm. His primary area of interest is material culture from the Indian subcontinent and towards this he has curated several exhibitions in India and overseas, besides lecturing extensively on the subjects worldwide. He also helped curate and set up the Amrapali Museum, Jaipur, besides exhibitions at the National Museum of India, National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi, and multiple galleries at the City Palace Museums of Udaipur, Jaipur and Hyderabad. He is widely published and some of his books include Posing for Posterity: Royal Indian Portraits and Nemai Ghosh: Satayajit Ray and Beyond. He also instituted the Jaipur Literature Festival and was till recently the co-director of Mountain Echoes, the Bhutan Literature Festival.

Sayed Haider Raza

Sayed Haider Raza

Sayed Haider Raza

One of the most prominent painters of his generation, S.H. Raza changed the course of modernism in India. After an early stint in Bombay, where he was a founding member of the Progressive Artists’ Group, he moved to France, where he spent the next sixty years. This volume explores Raza’s artistic trajectory from the time of his arrival in Paris, as well as his contribution to the development of modernism in the Indian subcontinent.

modern & contemporary art

296 pages, 255 illustrations and 14 photographs 10 x 11” (254 x 280 mm), hc-plc ISBN: 978-93-85360-87-9 (English ed.) 3500 | $60 | £49 Feb. 2023 |

Sayed Haider Raza

Beginning with early works developed in India before 1947, the essays in this volume analyze Raza’s later abstraction processes and landscapes. His strong thrust towards non-figurative art, and subsequent influences from European and American modernism, combined with Raza’s own memories and impressions of India and led him to a skilful negotiation between Indian spirituality and Western abstraction. Raza’s bold, failed experiment with the French Cubist style is also explored here, leading to the crucial moment when he decided he had to unlearn everything he knew. In addition to the essays, an anthology of previously unpublished letters offer glimpses of the master at work, and a detailed chronobiography situates him within the transcultural dynamics of the 1950s to the 1980s.

Accompanying the S.H. Raza exhibition at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2023, this monograph presents a compelling overview of Raza’s work and the highlights of his journey.

With contributions by Yashodhara Dalmia, Roobina Karode, Ashvin E. Rajagopalan, Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Sinha, Ashok Vajpeyi and OsianamaWorld

Yashodhara Dalmia is an independent art historian and curator based in New Delhi. Roobina Karode is Director and Chief Curator, Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. Ashvin E. Rajagopalan is an art historian and the Director of the Piramal Museum of Art, Mumbai. Homi K. Bhabha is the Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Director of the Mahindra Humanities Centre, and Senior Advisor to the President and Provost at Harvard University. Gayatri Sinha is a critic, editor and curator and has curated many important shows and written extensively about modern and contemporary Indian art. Ashok Vajpeyi is a New Delhi-based Hindi poet-critic who has written poetry and criticism of literature, music and visual arts in many publications.

modern & contemporary art

256 pages, 248 illustrations and 15 photographs

10 x 11” (254 x 280 mm), hc ISBN: 978-93-85360-85-5 2500 | $65 | £50 Dec. 2022 |

Published in association with Akar Prakar, Kolkata & New Delhi

Ganesh Haloi A Rhythm Surfaces in the Mind

Ganesh Haloi, born in Jamalpur, Mymensingh (now in Bangladesh), moved to Calcutta after the Partition in 1950. Witness to India’s resilient culture, its freedom and struggle for its secular modernism, Haloi is among the artists of the generation who have played a significant role in the shaping of Indian modern art.

Ganesh Haloi has cultivated a singular vocabulary of abstraction and landscape. This painterly world is textured with knowledge references that the artist is attuned to over decades—from realms as diverse as archaeology, ancient architecture, art history, sacred philosophy and poetry. His works are exercises in bringing life to the genre of landscape painting through the assembly of disparate symbolic forms. Throughout Haloi’s oeuvre, as in his thinking, there is never a separation between the nature within and the nature without.

With extensive essays by eminent art critics and interspersed with previously unpublished illustrated folios and sketches of work from throughout his life, this monograph documents Haloi’s earth-toned abstract vocabulary that has drawn over time on a vast breadth of iconography, ideas, and movements. In his paintings, Haloi is an itinerant traveller and so is the viewer—within strangely unbound time, one takes passage across the vastness of landscape, a floating geometry, the seduction of lines.

With contributions by Iftikhar Dadi, Adam Szymczyk, Lawrence Rinder, Natasha Ginwala, Soumik Nandy Majumdar, Roobina Karode and Jesal Thacker.

Natasha Ginwala, Associate Curator at Large at Martin-Gropius-Bau, is a curator, researcher and writer based in Colombo and Berlin. Jesal Thacker is an independent curator and also the founder-director of Bodhana Arts and Research Foundation. Iftikhar Dadi is John H. Burris Professor and Chair of the Department of History of Art at Cornell University. Adam Szymczyk, presently Curator-at-Large at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, is a curator and author based in Zurich, Switzerland. Lawrence Rinder is a curator and Director Emeritus of the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Soumik Nandy Majumdar is presently a faculty member of the Department of History of Art at Kala Bhavana, Santiniketan. Roobina Karode has been the Director and Chief Curator at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi since it opened in 2010.

Jali

Lattice of Divine Light in Mughal Architecture

architecture

264 pages, 220 colour photographs

9.5 x 11.6” (241 x 295 mm), hc ISBN: 978-93-85360-74-9 2950 | $65 | £49 Spring 2023 |

A jali is a perforated stone or latticed screen, with ornamental patterns which draw on the compositional rhythms of calligraphy and geometry. In the parts of Asia and the Mediterranean where solar rays are strongest and brightest is where ustads, or master artisans, were able to evolve an aesthetic language of light. Jalis share a common aim to bring filtered light into enclosed spaces, while providing protection and privacy. Additionally, they shape the atmosphere of a sacred space, augment the grandeur of palaces and enhance the charm of domestic interiors.

This volume explores the delicate beauty of more than two hundred jalis across India, from fourteenth-century examples in Delhi to those designed by contemporary artists. From temple designs of the Gujarat Sultanates, imperial symbolism and Sufi allusions in Mughal jalis, the innovations and adaptations of jalis across Rajasthan and central India and, further south, calligraphy in stone relief and pierced stone in the Deccan—this lavishly illustrated volume reveals the poetry etched in these stone screens.

Navina Najat Haidar is a curator in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s department of Islamic art. Mitchell Abdul Karim Crites is an American art historian, who has lived and worked in India for more than fifty years. George Michell, an authority on South Asian architecture, has made the study of South Indian architecture and archaeology his life’s work. Ebba Koch, preeminent art and architectural historian, is presently a professor at the Institute of Art History in Vienna and has been a senior researcher at the Austrian Academy of Sciences. Abhinav Goswami, based in Vrindavan, is trained as an archaeologist, photographer and temple priest.

cinema

192 pages, 165 photographs

9.65 x 11.50” (245 x 292 mm), hc ISBN: 978-93-85360-78-7 3950 | $75 | £55 Feb. 2023 |

Published in association with The Alkazi Collection of Photography, New Delhi

josef wirsching archives

Bombay Talkies

An Unseen History of Indian Cinema

Edited by Debashree Mukherjee • Foreword by Georg Wirsching

Following Hitler’s rise to power in interwar Germany, the biggest German film studios of the day found themselves being taken over by the Nazi Party for propaganda purposes. Many artists and filmmakers, Jewish and non-Jewish, who wished to escape the coercive, persecutory atmosphere, migrated westward; less well known is their eastward movement to India, where German and East European émigrés found work in the Bombay film industry. Among them was the cinematographer Josef Wirsching, who moved to Bombay in the 1930s. In his films for Bombay Talkies, he frequently framed characters through arches, doorways and windows; favoured eccentric camera angles; and masterfully moulded light to create shadows and pools of darkness. These techniques lent themselves beautifully to Bombay Talkies’ melodramatic screenplays, and thus was the crisis of the alienated individual in post-war Europe transferred to the crisis of the modernising self in a colonised nation.

While scores of books on Indian film and its “pioneers” exist, there is little memory of Josef Wirsching. This illustrated volume invites a variety of film historians and scholars to analyse the cultural significance of Wirsching’s photographic archive, thereby situating a film pioneer back into the history of Bombay cinema.

With contributions by Sudhir Mahadevan, Priya Jaikumar, Rachel Dwyer, Debashree Mukherjee, Kaushik Bhaumik, Virchand Dharamsey and Eleanor Halsall.

Sudhir Mahadevan is Associate Professor of Film Studies in the Department of Comparative Literature, Cinema & Media at the University of Washington, Seattle. Priya Jaikumar is Professor of Cinematic Arts in the Division of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California. Rachel Dwyer is Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema at SOAS, University of London. Debashree Mukherjee teaches film and media in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian and African Studies at Columbia University in New York. Kaushik Bhaumik is Associate Professor of Cinema Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Virchand Dharamsey is the author of numerous articles on the history of Indian cinema. Eleanor Halsall is a film historian whose current research focuses on German film studios as part of the STUDIOTEC project.

art

240 pages, 200 illustrations 9.5 x 11.5” (241 x 292 mm), hc ISBN: 978-93-85360-80-0 3500 | $65 | £45 Spring 2023 |

Ellora

Cross-Fertilization of Style in Buddhist, Brahmanical and Jain Cave Temples

Edited by Deepanjana Klein Ÿ Photographs by Arno Klein

Ellora attempts the first systematic overview of the Ellora cave temples, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The origin of rock-cut architecture in India may be traced to the indigenous tradition of using natural caverns by ascetics and mendicants. The earliest rock-cut excavations were patronised by the Mauryan Emperor Ashoka in the Barabar and Nagarjuni Hills around 250 BCE. Between 200 BCE to 200 CE Buddhist chaityas and viharas were excavated along ancient trade routes. In tracing the evolution of rock-cut temples, the Ellora cave temple site is the only site that houses Buddhist, Brahmanical and Jain caves. These rock-cut cave temples were excavated between 600–1000 CE.

Ellora looks into each of these groups of rock-cut temples by religion, patronage and stylistic influences each patron dynasty drew from surrounding regions. Essays and analyses by scholars bring a comprehensive understanding of the chronology, stylistic development and documentation of the 34 main caves and lesser caves of the site. Additionally, this volume also includes extensive photographic documentation and ground plans of the most significant caves.

With contributions by Dr. Stanislaw J. Czuma, Dr. Nicolas Morrissey, Lisa N. Owen, Vidya Dehejia, Pia Brancaccio and Arno Klein.

Deepanjana Klein is the International Head of Department for Contemporary Indian & Classical Indian, Himalayan and Southeast Asian Art at Christie’s. Dr. Stanislaw J. Czuma is a long-time art historian, museum curator, and educator. In 1935, Dr. Czuma traveled to India to complete graduate studies at Banaras Hindu University and the University of Calcutta in 1958 and 1959. Dr. Nicolas Morrissey, a specialist in the archaeology, epigraphy, architecture, and art history of India, is Asst. Professor of Asian Art and Religion in the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art. Lisa N. Owen is currently an Associate Professor at University of North Texas. Her research focuses on ancient and medieval rock-cut monuments in India. Vidya Dehejia is the Barbara Stoler Miller Professor of Indian and South Asian Art at Columbia University and has authored numerous books on South Asian art. Pia Brancaccio is Associate Professor of Art History at Drexel University. Her research focuses on Buddhist art from South Asia. Arno Klein is Director of the MATTER Lab (Mind-Assisting Technologies for Therapy, Education, and Research) at the Child Mind Institute in Manhattan.

art

292 pages, 250 illustrations 9.5 x 11.5” (241 x 292 mm), hc ISBN: 978-93-85360-79-4 3950 | $70 | £50 Spring 2023 |

devotion and splendour

The Story of the Caves at Ajanta

The Ajanta Caves, in western India, are rock-cut Buddhist cave monuments, worked upon from the 2nd century BCE to about the 6th century CE and containing paintings and sculptures described as among the finest surviving examples of ancient Indian art. This volume, by the noted scholar of art Rupika Chawla, explores the life of the Buddha and his teachings through the paintings of Ajanta.

Beginning with the mathematical and architectural achievements of the Vedic age which influenced the carvings of the Ajanta Caves, the author traces the birth of the Buddha and his path to enlightenment through the paintings. Several of his basic tenets are discussed with Ajanta images as the central point, including his conversions, attitudes to women and the growth of his sangha. The various dynasties who propagated Buddhism—including the Satvahanas, under whom the making of the Caves commenced—and the defeat of various patrons, which led to the adandoment of the Caves, are explored with relevant images. Separate chapters highlight the Jataka tales, influenced by Hindu and Buddhist oral traditions, Naga (humanised versions of snakes) stories, and the history of maritime trade as narrated by the paintings in the Ajanta Caves.

Rupika Chawla is a conservator of paintings who has restored several Ravi Varma art works. She is also a curator, and imparts training in conservation. She has written extensively on contemporary Indian art and is the author of the seminal work Raja Ravi Varma: Painter of Colonial India (Mapin, reprinted 2019).

art & culture

128 pages, 90 colour illustrations

8.5 x 11" (216 x 280 mm), sc

ISBN: 978-93-85360-54-1

1950 | $50 | £30 Spring 2023 |

Whose Ramayana Is It Anyway?

If there is one grand tale that has impacted Asia, it has to be the Ramayana, the great Indian epic. In this sumptuously illustrated volume, the author highlights the various southern and south-eastern Asian traditions and variations of the tale with nearly a hundred superb watercolour paintings.

That this ancient narrative has adapted itself to multiple art forms is not surprising, given the diversity of its retellings in both literary and nonliterary forms—oral narratives, dance-dramas, plays, and more. From India, the Rama tale is presumed to have travelled along three routes: by land, the northern route took the story from Punjab and Kashmir into China, Tibet, and East Turkestan; by sea, the southern route carried the story from Gujarat and South India into Java, Sumatra, and Malaya; and again by land, the eastern route delivered the story from Bengal into Burma, Thailand, Laos, and to some extent, Cambodia and Vietnam. In Indonesia and Malaysia, the epic has been incorporated into the Islamic tradition; Theravada Buddhism in Thailand and Cambodia adopted Hindu divinities from the Rama story into its fold.

With stunning original art, this volume celebrates this all-inclusive tradition of the epic, foregrounding it as a cultural phenomenon across time and space.

Natasha Sarkar is an artist and academic who has taught at several universities across the United States and Asia. A recipient of several awards and grants, including the Rockefeller Grant-in- Aid, she has to her credit several publications and articles on history, gender and science. Sarkar had a solo show of artwork at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata in December 2016.

crafts & design

260 pages, 288 photographs and a map 9 x 11” (228.6 x 280 mm), hc

ISBN: 978-93-85360-94-7 2950 | $60 | £49.90 Jan. 2023  |

Published in association with Institute of Indian Interior Designers, Mumbai

Indian Crafts Interiors

Traditional craftsmanship in India can be traced back to the beginning of civilization in the subcontinent. Locally available materials were used by master craftspeople in order to create objects of value used for a variety of purposes. Despite the wide range of crafts practised in India since antiquity, contemporary discourses on design have been slow to recognize the potential of this heritage, with only a handful of designers incorporating traditional crafts in their vision. With many such crafts now disappearing owing to modern methods, there is an urgent need to present a design-oriented perspective on crafts, with a focus on sustainability for a symbiotic and meaningful future for both.

It is not enough to treat crafts as an afterthought; the best results are obtained when a craft itself forms the DNA of the design. This volume aims to create a lavish showcase of the possibilities of Indian crafts being used in expressive, practical and contemporary ways within interior spaces. Organized by material, the contributors take us through the wide range of regional craft variations, further supported by outstanding design solutions that utilize these crafts. This material is complemented by the book’s appendix, which lists major craft forms and their pre-eminent practitioners across the country. The result is a volume that functions as a reference resource, inspirational “lookbook”, and index of practitioners. With insightful essays on stone; grass, coir and natural fibres; wood; textiles; bamboo, willow and cane; glazed ceramics and terracotta; surface decoration, metal; glass and mirror-work; and heritage properties by various pioneers, as well as stunning visuals, this is an indispensable volume for students and practitioners of design.

With contributions by Jaya Jaitly, Aman Nath, Asha Sairam, Kristine Michael, Neelam Chhiber, Rebecca Reubens, A. Balasubramaniam, Mitchell Abdul Karim Crites, Ayush Kasliwal and Arjun Rathi.

architecture

228 pages, 227 photographs and 40 drawings

8.5 x 11” (216 x 280 mm), hc ISBN: 978-93-94501-01-0

₹1500 | $45 | £35 Jan. 2023 |

Resurgent Modernism

The Architecture of Namita Singh

It is a strange and unfortunate paradox that the city of Chandigarh, celebrated as the great experiment in modern architecture, should be remembered only for its association with Le Corbusier. There have been significant sustained professional practices in the city since the seventy years following its inception that have taken architecture into a modern Indian direction.

A book on the works of Namita Singh is long overdue. Her Chandigarhbased practice, has delivered a range of buildings—including educational institutes, offices, commercial projects, housing, heritage and restoration works, private homes and interiors—all across India. While much of her work is in tune with a contemporary modernism, she has always drawn on local values and technologies for its generic expressions. Having set up a practice barely a decade after independence, Namita belongs to the generation of architects who participated in the country’s rapid development, providing a range of infrastructure projects for a society in the making, its institutions and cities.

How does one assess the overall work of a five decade-long practice that has succeeded in creating monumental public works but also those of a fine-tuned residential scale, each structure dedicated to a precise ideal, conscious of environment and technology, scope and purpose? Foremost is the inclusion of work that illustrates principles the architect uses to build. Second, projects that clearly demonstrate a conceptual unity to an idea or design as well as those that are part of the stylistic consistency of the firm. The accompanying pictures tell a parallel story and lend value to the breadth of the varied projects presented and of a practice informed by inquiry.

Gautam Bhatia is a Delhi-based architect, writer and artist. Recipient of several awards for his buildings, Bhatia has also published books on architecture and satire, and recently authored Blueprint (Mapin, 2018). His drawings and sculptures have been displayed in galleries in India and abroad.

architecture

128 pages, 108 photographs, 36 drawings and 18 maps 7.16 x 9.25” (182 x 235 mm), sc with gategold ISBN: 978-93-85360-97-8 995 | $25 | £20 Spring 2023 |

Learning from Patna Riverfront

Learning from Patna Riverfront chronicles a unique revitalization programme at the River Ganges in Patna. For a city with its back to the river, with isolated ghats and a disconnected development proposal, this project proposes a comprehensive development solution addressing vital concerns such as public space and civic amenities, along with environmental awareness and ecological restoration. The project connects existing fragmented open spaces to provide a continuous public space along the river, aiding in religious festivities and recreation.

Engaging a long stretch along the river, the proposed development includes 6.5 kilometres of promenades, six community, education and recreational buildings, as well as food kiosks, ecological landscaping and other public amenities. The project received funding of $40 million from the World Bank and was supported by Ministry of Water Resources (Ministry of Jal Shakti).

Designed as a multi-purpose space, the project also aims to develop ghat prototypes that could create a typology for the river’s edge, integrating heritage buildings and being sensitive to the local context. As a holistic development, the proposal promotes a walkable city, creating larger usable open spaces and attracting people from all age groups.

Nishant Lall is an urban designer and architect from UCLA (University of California Los Angeles) with over two decades’ experience in Los Angeles and Boston in the USA. Having worked on several awardwinning urban projects, he set up NilaA Architecture and Urban Design in New Delhi in 2010. Lall is currently an expert on urban design with the Climate Change and Disaster Risk Management Group at World Bank India. He is a Visiting Professor of Urban Design at School of Planning and Architecture, New Delhi.

art

192 pages, 77 photographs and 5 drawings

11 x 14” (279 x 355 mm), boxed edition ISBN: 978-93-85360-86-2

9500 | $295 | £215 2021 |

“A captivating volume…” Sunday Herald (Deccan Herald)

“What makes the collection of portraits remarkable is that it introduces the viewer to an entire universe of different aspects and moods of worship without diluting its impact. ”

—Geeta Doctor, OPEN

Shringara of Shrinathji

From the Collection of the Late Gokal Lal Mehta

“

…a majestic visual anthology” —The Print

In the unique culture of Pushtimarg, a Vaishnava sect founded by Vallabhacharya in the 15th century, art and devotion are deeply intertwined. A captivating volume, Shringara of Shrinathji, catalogues a set of previously unpublished miniature paintings of the Pushtimarg tradition from the collection of late Shri Gokal Lal Mehta.

Pushtimarg lays great stress on worship of the deity Shrinathji through the joys of life and living and devotion through kirtan (devotional poemsongs), bhog (offerings of sumptuous food and beverages), shringara (offerings of adornment, through dressing and ornamentation), and decoration and painting. The paintings constitute the Nathdwara school, so named because the image of Shrinathji is enshrined in a temple in Nathdwara, Rajasthan.

The sixty splendid artworks reproduced for the first time in this book were executed during the dynamic stewardship of Tilkayat Govardhanlalji (1862–1934 AD), who was a great patron of the arts. Under his patronage, Nathdwara painting reached its zenith. The collection’s period and the high quality of workmanship make it very likely that this set of Nathdwara miniature paintings were painted by Sukhdev Kishandas Gaur, the mukhia (chief artist) of the temple. Documenting the high degree of skill in draughtsmanship, portraiture and in composition, expositions by artist Amit Ambalal accompany the lavish, high-quality photographic reproductions of these beautiful paintings in this volume. Introducing the readers to the visual world of the Pushtimarg as well as the spirit of Nathdwara, this publication in a special boxed edition will be of interest for collectors and general public alike.

Amit Ambalal is an eminent contemporary Indian artist whose work forms part of prestigious collections in India and abroad including the British Museum and Victoria & Albert Museum, London. He has also authored the landmark volume Krishna as Shrinathji: Rajasthani Paintings from Nathdvara (Mapin, 1987) on the subject of Pushtimarg and Nathdwara paintings and recently written the Foreword to In the Service of Krishna (Mapin, 2019).

Vikram Goyal, founder of Viya Home, is one of India’s leading product designers, committed to the preservation of indigenous practices and the country’s cultural heritage. Recipient of multiple design awards, he is also co-founder of Kama Ayurveda, a wellness brand dedicated to promoting the benefits of Ayurveda. Goyal is the eldest grandchild of late Gokal Lal Mehta, whose collection is featured in this book.

INCREDIBLE TREASURES

Incredible Treasures

UNESCO World Heritage Sites of India

culture & conservation

240 pages, 246 photographs

10 x 12” (254 x 305 mm), hc-plc ISBN: 978-93-85360-71-8 2950 | $60 | £49.90 2021 |

The World Heritage Sites listing by UNESCO aims to promote awareness and safeguarding of heritage sites considered to have outstanding value for all humanity. There are 38 such sites in India, as of May 2021, and this volume presents them all together for the first time, with accessible commentary and stunning photographs.

This treasure trail begins deep in the jungles of central India, with the spirited figures that shimmer on the prehistoric cave walls of Bhimbetka. Caves of another kind draw us westwards, to the radiant artistry of the rock-cut sanctuaries of Ajanta, Ellora and Elephanta Caves. Further north and east are monuments materially associated with the birth and spread of Buddhism across the subcontinent. In the south, mighty stone temples rise in the air, from the Chola temples to the ruins of Hampi, and, in the east, from the Sun Temple to Khajuraho, presenting sacred and profane visions of faith. Other masterpieces of pluralism borrow from Hindu, Jain and Islamic traditions, such as the Taj Mahal or Raniki-Vav, both expressions of grief turned into beauty. Finally, even very old cultures must come into the new, finding novel vocabularies from colonial masters and Christian Europe, as in the railways chugging up snowy Darjeeling, or Le Corbusier’s Chandigarh.

India’s natural odyssey takes us through forested glades that harbour flora and fauna found nowhere else in the world. From the gelid slopes of the Himalayas to the many wildlife sanctuaries, the natural and mixed properties include biospheres of exceptional beauty and sites of long interaction between people and the landscape.

Incredible Treasures is an eloquent homage to India’s long, layered history, bearing witness to its rich biodiversity and the creativity and influence of multiple communities, crafts and religious traditions.

“The publication offers a stunning view of all world heritage sites of India...described for the first time with informative, accessible commentary and spectacular photographs.”

—The Indian Express

With contributions by Shikha Jain, Vinay Sheel Oberoi, Rohit Chawla, Janhwij Sharma, Amareswar Galla, Amita Baig , Jyoti Pandey Sharma, V.B. Mathur, Rohit Jigyasu, Kiran Joshi and Sonali Ghosh

Dr. Shikha Jain has worked on several nomination dossiers for India and other Asian countries. Vinay Sheel Oberoi served as the Ambassador & Permanent Delegate of India to UNESCO from 2010 to 2014.

Rohit Chawla is one of India’s leading contemporary photographers. Eric Falt is currently Director, UNESCO India Cluster Office.

248 pages, 203 colour and 4 b/w illustrations

10 x 11” (254 x 279 mm), hc ISBN: 978-93-85360-99-2 ₹2950 | $60 | £45 March 2022 |

Karkhana A Studio in

Rajasthan

Waswo X. Waswo Foreword by Giles Tillotson and Introduction by Annapurna Garimella

Karkhana takes us on a meandering journey through the Rajasthani city of Udaipur as we follow American artist Waswo X. Waswo, a twenty-year resident of India, through a typical day of collaborations with a variety of Indian artists. From miniature painters such as R. Vijay and Dalpat Jingar, to the third-generation photo hand-colourist Rajesh Soni, to the phenomenally skilled painter of golden borders, Shankar Kumawat, we are treated to an intimate look behind the scenes of Waswo’s extended network of co-creators, as well as the photography studio he uses in the outlying village of Varda.

Waswo and his team weave visual narratives that blend vintage miniature painting techniques with digital photography, the past with the present, and a self-effacing humour with existential angst. Karkhana is a word that literally means “factory” in Hindi, but has lineage to the historical painting workshops of Persia.

This book explores the continuance of this system of mutual artistic collaboration within a contemporized Indian community, and the manner in which Waswo’s unlikely team has come into the contemporary art market.

“...his [Waswo’s] new book Karkhana: A Studio in Rajasthan captures the multiplicity of his life and work here. At times it’s a photo book that recounts his oeuvre; sometimes it’s a travelogue that whisks us off to Udaipur where he is based; then it transitions into an autobiography, as Waswo reflects on the spirit of collaboration that has fuelled his decades-long practice.”

—Ritupriya Basu, Architectural Digest

Waswo X. Waswo is a photographer and writer, noted for his chemical process sepia-toned photographs of India, and also hand-coloured portraits made at his studio in Udaipur, Rajasthan. He has lived in India for more than two decades and has had a long and fruitful collaboration with a variety of artists skilled in Indian miniature painting techniques.

learning from india series

Learning from Delhi Practising Architecture in Urban India

Gert-Jan Scholte, Pelle Poiesz and Sanne Vanderkaaij Gandhi

architecture

228 pages, 65 colour photographs 17 maps

6.5 x 9.5” (165 x 241 mm), sc with gatefold

ISBN: 978-93-85360-12-1 (Mapin) ISBN: 978-1-935677-69-7 (Grantha) 1500 | $35 | £23 • 2016 •

The authors of the ‘Learning from India Series’ continue their journey to unravel the lessons that can be learned from practising architecture and urban planning in the bustling capital city of India—New Delhi. With essays, maps and photo essays of Bas Losekoot, this volume presents a series of interviews with architects and planners who work in the city. Learning from Delhi will be of significance to both students and practitioners of architecture and planning, as well as people interested in Delhi and its built environment.

Learning from Ahmedabad Practising Architecture in Urban India

Gert-Jan Scholte, Pelle Poiesz and Sanne Vanderkaaij Gandhi

architecture

212 pages, 60 photographs, 2 drawings and 7 maps 6.5 x 9.5” (165 x 241 mm), sc with gatefold ISBN: 978-93-85360-96-1 1750 | $35 | £25 (t) Spring 2023 |

After the success of Learning from Mumbai and Learning from Delhi (Mapin 2013, 2016), the authors of the Learning from India series continue to unravel the lessons that can be learned from practising architecture and urban planning in India’s first World Heritage City— Ahmedabad.

Learning from Mumbai Practising Architecture in

Urban India

Gert-Jan Scholte, Pelle Poiesz and Sanne Vanderkaaij Gandhi

architecture

196 pages, 57 colour photographs, 14 colour drawings

6.5 x 9.5” (165 x 241 mm), sc with gatefold

ISBN: 978-81-89995-81-2 (Mapin)

ISBN: 978-1-935677-82-6 (Grantha)

1195 | $35 | £23 • 2013 •

“Making the volume a must-have is this plethora of images that captures the city’s character from numerous angles. The volume puts together snippets on the subject of Bombay... All this and more, makes the volume a ready reckon on the city...”

Subhra Mazumdar, travelanddeal.com

With several essays and maps, Learning from Ahmedabad lays the ground for a series of interviews with architects, planners, educators and artists who live and work in the city. Locating these explorations within a local framework are perspectives from scholars such as pre-eminent architect B.V. Doshi and danseuse Mallika Sarabhai. These narratives are balanced by the take of historians such as Esther David and veteran social worker Elaben Bhatt. A special place is reserved in this volume for the photo essays of Bas Losekoot.

Learning from Ahmedabad will be of significance to both students and practitioners of architecture and planning, as well as people interested in Ahmedabad and its built environment.

Dutch architects Pelle Poiesz and GertJan Scholte studied architecture at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands and at Sir J.J. College of Architecture in Mumbai. Sanne Vanderkaaij Gandhi is a researcher and writer based in Mumbai.

Sense and Sensation

Ganesh Haloi 2021

modern & contemporary art

48 pages, 30 illustrations 10 x 11” (254 x 280 mm), sc with gatefold

ISBN: 978-93-85360-93-0 995 | $30 | £22 2021 |

Published in association with Akar Prakar, Kolkata

In this series of ink paintings, we get a significant peek at the working methods of the celebrated contemporary abstract artist, Ganesh Haloi. Like the Taoist and Zen masters of East Asia, Haloi’s reduction of colour reveals the pure asceticism of his structural method. The sensory presence of the riparian landscapes of Bengal are referents of memory manifest entirely in monochrome. At the same time, these referents are analyses, reduction to elementary forms, or rhythmic punctuations evoking music. These patterns and elements, dashed strokes, squiggles, crosses and triangles— large and small—occupy a plane of symbolic memory, where the unconscious is structured like a visual language.

Debashish Banerji is the Haridas Chaudhuri Professor of Indian Philosophies and Cultures and the Doshi Professor of Asian Art at the California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco. He has authored and edited several books and art catalogues on major figures of the Bengal renaissance, critical posthumanism, yoga psychology and a variety of creative and art-related projects. Banerji has curated about fifteen exhibitions of Indian and Japanese art, and has written and produced a documentary film, Darshan: The Living Art of India (2018).

Bindu Space and Time in Raza’s Vision

modern & contemporary art

208 pages, 72 colour and 20 b&w photographs 8.26 x 9” (210 x 228.6 mm), sc with gatefold ISBN: 978-93-85360-81-7 1950 | $39 | £31 2020 |

The Bindu has been the leitmotif in S.H. Raza’s work, growing in meaning over many years. To this primordial symbol he was introduced as a boy of eight years, in his native village of Kakaiya in Madhya Pradesh. The intensity of the experience remained, pursuing him as a lodestar, surfacing many years later when he was in France with dynamic force as The Black Sun

Raza’s concern with nature was to explore the elementary principles of time and space which govern the universe. To express these fundamental concepts which form the basis of Indian thought, he used the principles of pure geometry. His use of the point, line square, circle and triangle compose part of a universal language, explored equally by the pioneers of abstract art in 20th century Europe and traditional shilpins in ancient India. This book traces the evolution of a vision over fifty years of painting by an artist who retained his Indian sensibility. His images are improvisations on an essential theme: the mapping out of a metaphorical space in the mind which is India.

Geeti Sen is an art historian and critic, and has authored and edited several major books on Indian art. She is the author of Feminine Fables: Imaging the Indian Woman in Painting, Photography and Cinema (Mapin, 2002) and, most recently, a contributor to Meera Mukherjee: Purity of Vision (Mapin, 2018), among others.

Monsoon Mosques

Arrival of Islam and the Development of a Mosque Vernacular Patricia Tusa Fels

architecture 140 pages, 110 photographs, 8 drawings and a map 7.16 x 9.25” (182 x 235 mm) sc with gatefold ISBN: 978-93-85360-70-1 1750 | $35 | £25 2021 |

For centuries, monsoon winds brought traders from the Middle East to India, and onward to Malaysia and the Indonesian archipelago, carrying not just merchants but also the Islamic faith with them.

As Islam peacefully spread through the Indian Ocean littoral, the coastal trading cities responded in extraordinary ways. Modifying the form of the local tropical buildings of timber and stone, communities created a stylistic hybrid for their houses of prayer, the ubiquitous village mosque. An exceptional vernacular ensued, reflecting the unique combination of environment, local materials and building skills, trade and the traders. This volume celebrates a finely curated selection of centuries-old mosques in Kerala, Sumatra, Java and Malaysia.

But the 20th and 21st centuries have brought numerous threats to their continued existence and vitality. Monsoon Mosques explores the fate of these vibrant symbols of the integration of Islam into local culture.

Patricia Tusa Fels, an architect and historic preservationist, is the founder of PTF Architects. She has written about and worked on conservation projects in the United States, Italy, Malaysia, India and Indonesia. She is also the author of Mosques of Cochin (Mapin, 2011).

One Continuous Line Art, Architecture and Urbanism of Aditya Prakash

Vikramaditya Prakash

art & architecture

292 pages, 337 colour photographs and 59 drawings 10 x 11” (254 x 280 mm), hc ISBN: 978-81-89995-68-3 3950 | $65 | £50 – 2020 |

This book is enhanced with augmented reality videos, audios and slideshows, available through the ® mobile app.

Supported by Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts

“More than just a biography, this book is a critical assessment of Aditya Prakash’s oeuvre as a designer, painter and philosopher, and above all as a man positioned in the complex webbing of modernity, post-colonialism and nation building.”

Mark M. Jarzombek, Professor of History, Theory and Criticism, MIT

Aditya Prakash (1924–2008) belonged to the first generation of Indian modernists that came into its own in the Nehruvian era. Built around a multidisciplinary oeuvre that was unique amongst his peers, Prakash’s life was dedicated to finding the “one continuous line” which linked art—as the search for the beautiful, architecture—as the enabler of life, and planning—as the ethic of protecting the interests of poor.

Interspersed with a series of visual essays, this book is conceived as an introduction to Prakash’s vast body of work. This volume documents Prakash’s education as an architect in Delhi and London, his early modernist works, his deep artistic impulses, his love of theatre, and his efforts to rally a culture of academic inquiry. The book concludes with an interpretive essay on Prakash’s life and legacy, along with lavish illustrations of a portfolio of select works.

Vikramaditya Prakash, an architect, architectural historian and theorist, is Professor of Architecture at the University of Washington in Seattle.

India’s Film Poster Heritage

Mutable

Ceramic and Clay Art in

India Since 1947

Sindhura D.M. Ÿ with Introduction by Annapurna Garimella and an essay by Kristine Michael

cinema

176 pages, 137 posters, 8.26 x 8.26" (210 x 210 mm), hc-plc ISBN: 978-93-85360-39-8

₹1500 | $39 | £29 Spring 2022

for deRivaz & lves

Twenty years after Osian’s landmark auction ‘Historical Mela: The ABC Series’ in 2002, deRivaz & Ives bring an auction offering the finest collection of rare first release original film posters from India’s vast cinematic history. Film posters—especially the handpainted ones—represent a fragility. It is now a lost art, but India is one of the last few countries to have kept it alive. India’s Film Poster Heritage showcases many original designs that are still not available on the global internet, such as that of Tarana (1951) by SM Pandit, a painter from Karnataka who designed film publicity material for Raj Kapoor and others.

With its focus on preserving the cinematic heritage of India, the volume specifically highlights designers and artists not well known for their work as poster artists, including legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray. Works of poster designers like DR Bhosale (Main Nashe Mein Hoon, 1959), Pamart Studios (Haqeeqat, 1964 and Khamoshi, 1969), Diwakar Karkare (Sholay, 1975 and Jaane Bhi Do Yaaro, 1973) and C Mohan (Khatta Meetha, 1978) are part of this collection. There is also one of the most elusive original release versions of the Awara (1951) poster. Three unique versions of Shashi Kapoor’s Juari (1968) are seen here for the first time. No other exhibition or collection yet has ever placed so many first release original design Indian film posters together for public sale. This auction and publication is a step in the direction of preserving and galvanizing interest in our paper-based cinematic heritage.

crafts

204 pages, 183 photographs 11 x 11” (280 x 280 mm) sc with gatefold

ISBN: 978-93-85360-56-5 1950 | $45 | £35 2021 |

Published in association with Piramal Museum of Art, Mumbai

This volume is the first major publication on the vast varieties of ceramic histories and practices in India. The result of the 2017 exhibition ‘Mutable’ at the Piramal Museum of Art, this book archives the work of hereditary potters, industrial ceramics, studio pottery and artists who use clay as a medium.

Situated within the larger context of the postIndependence crafts revival, this volume pays keen attention to the transnational histories of practice through five sections. The section Shift explores the local and international lineages of Indian studio pottery. Object discusses the ways in which clay has been a unique medium of expression for many artists. Utility considers the development of Indian ceramic industries, through lenses of economics and class. Form takes as its subject hereditary potters who negotiate modern-day artistic spaces. Perception focuses on the low-fired water container and its web of connections with its makers and users. The very mutability of clay and its shaper and the resulting dynamism, that produces both tensions and opportunities, are at the centre of this book.

Sindhura D.M., an art historian, was one of the curators of the exhibition ‘Mutable’ at the Piramal Museum of Art. Kristine Michael is an Indian ceramist and writer. Annapurna Garimella, a scholar of Indian art, was also a curator of the ‘Mutable’ exhibition.

Mapin Publishing

Mapin Publishing has been internationally reputed for producing highquality illustrated books for over 35 years. Our publishing programme covers a broad spectrum: fine art, modern and contemporary art, architecture, archaeology, crafts, design, exhibition catalogues, museum collections, performing arts, photography and more. We publish children’s books that bring Indian narratives and art-forms closer to young readers.

With its long-standing experience, Mapin has a unique understanding of design, content and production. We are well known for our aesthetically produced books and for our commitment to quality publishing. The books are both a visual treat and a scholarly discovery, with images spread over page after page, supplemented with supporting captions and text. Our authors and photographers are renowned experts in their respective fields, and we have worked with the best designers, editors and printers and partnered with international museums, institutions and publishers.

Preview on: https://issuu.com/mapin

Captions

Front and Back cover Untitled, Tempera on paper pasted on board from Ganesh Haloi: A Rhythm Surfaces in the Mind (See p. 7) Private collection, Courtesy: Akar Prakar

Facing page Payag, Humayun Seated in a Landscape, c. 1650 from The Planetary King (See p. 1) Dr. Arthur M. Sackler, Smithsonian Institution