Sharjah’s exhibition of South Asian prints reveals the birth of an art

An exhibition in Sharjah of prints from the subcontinent examines themes of personal devastation and political tension.

Anupam Sud’s Dialogue, 1984, part of the exhibition. Courtesy Sharjah Art Museum

Works of art can capture the essence of a nation like no words can. One such is Wounds by Somnath Hore, who is regarded as the doyen of Indian printmaking.

Hore used a burin – a steel engraving tool – and acid to represent the destruction and devastation that brought injustice and untold suffering on the poor over the course of the 20th century.

Wounds is part of a paper pulp print series created in the 1970s by Hore that explores human suffering through disfigurations on paper, creating wound-like gashes, sometimes stained with red bloodlike pigment.

This is just one of the 157 works from more than 20 Pakistani and Indian artists being showcased in Trajectories: 19th-21st Century Printmaking in India & Pakistan, a groundbreaking exhibition at Sharjah Art Museum.

The works take the visitor on a journey across decades, beginning in the 19th century and noting the early influence of British colonialism on printmaking styles, to the era of independence and, finally, into the present day.

“The intention is to highlight the two countries’ rich shared art traditions and engender an inspiriting artistic dialogue that transcends borders and political realities,” says Manal Ataya, the director general of Sharjah Museums Department. “The exhibition intends to consolidate the close and multifaceted, cultural and artistic links that the UAE has always maintained with the South Asian subcontinent.”

Some of the images are responses to the painful experience of partition, while the contemporary prints invite visitors to explore the development of the medium across borders and the ways in which today’s artists incorporate symbolism into their work.

One work is a colourful poster of Khoobsoorat Bala (Beautiful Temptress). It is a lithograph from 1918 that represents a transitory period when the Lahore art scene was developing into an indigenous voice in Pakistan and was also the centre of modern art in the western part of the subcontinent.

Another work on display is a 1984 black and white etching on paper by Anupam Sud, entitled Dialogue. It is a sombre piece, of a man and woman, sitting in traditional dress, against a window overseeing a crumbling city, with a single white cow in the background.

The collection presents some of the finest achievements in the arts of South Asia, whose cultural legacy and, above all, whose people have long contributed in many different ways to life in the UAE, says Ataya.

The two guest curators are Paula Sengupta from Calcutta and Camilla Hadi Chaudhary from Karachi. “To curate this exhibition for the Sharjah Art Museum is a dream project,” says Sengupta.

“The process of co-curating with my Pakistani counterpart, Camilla Hadi Chaudhary, has led me on a journey of discovery as I’ve learnt about printmaking practice in Pakistan post-partition years that had remained hidden behind borders despite the shared history of the subcontinent.”

As well as the stories told through the art, the exhibition also traces the medium’s evolution through time. “Printmaking in the subcontinent has undergone vast changes. From a medium that was the exclusive domain of the European in India, to its existence as an indigenous bazaar art in the 19th century and finally its emergence as an artistic entity in its own right in the 20th century – the journey has been long and arduous,” says Chaudhary.

One of the oldest pieces is a Punjab lithograph from the early- to mid-19th century. Flourishing in the bazaars of Amritsar and Lahore in the 19th century, the Punjab’s lithographs celebrated the supremacy of linearity. Characterised by strong, sharp and sinuous lines, these monochromatic lithographic prints from the Punjab plains are descendants of the miniature tradition of that region, a melting pot of different influences.

“Being distinctively different from the European academic lithographs, the Punjab lithographs depicted cityscapes, military activities, Hindu mythological scenes, Sikh legends and romantic folklore, ” says Sengupta.

The exhibition is not just about talents and history – it is also a journey through identity and ­heritage.

“It will be interesting for visitors to the exhibition to observe how, as colonialism fell and self-rule took over, there is an increasing pride evident in the prints for indigenous culture and themes,” says Chaudhary.

Trajectories: 19th-21st Century Printmaking in India & Pakistan is at Sharjah Art Museum until November 20. Visit www.sharjahmuseums.ae for more information.

Rym Ghazal is a senior features writer and columnist at The ­National.