Overview

Rare are the occasions to exhibit aspects of a full career by one artist living in India nearly a century ago; rarer still to exhibit two of them. When the two also happen to be father and daughter, and key members of the art movements of their time, the exhibition assumes something of a unique status.

Rustom Siodia (1881 – 1946)

Siodia was a painter, illustrator, and essayist. He was the first Parsi, and the second Indian, ever to study at the Royal Academy, London (1908 – 1913), and was a student of John Singer Sargent. After his return to India, he went on to forge an art career that spanned the traditions of portraiture, landscape painting and history painting. The high point of his career came in 1929, when he was commissioned to paint murals for the newly built Viceregal Lodge (later Rashtrapati Bhavan) in Delhi.

Cumi Dallas (1907 – 1973)

Having graduated from Sir J J School of Art in painting and mural decoration in the early 1930s (as a student of J M Ahivasi), Dallas became a leading exponent of the Bombay Revival school of painting. She held numerous solo exhibitions in India and the UK, including at the National Gallery, London in 1950. She was also recognised as a portraitist: the Queen of Iran sat for her and her depiction of Madam Cama was installed in the Indian Parliament.

A Video Walkthrough by Mort Chatterjee