It’s a treasure viewing that no one should miss. Art buffs got their first-ever view of 80 works of globally well-known Indian artist Jamini Roy at the 42 day show exhibition at Dhoomimal Gallery. The 20-th century master’s work unveiled a set of drawings and paintings that had remained part of a private collection. 

The exhibition is a collateral event of the recently concluded prestigious India Art Fair 2016 held in the capital. The exhibition will feature Jamini Roy’s drawings and paintings from more than a half-century-old assemblage of Uma and Ravi Jain Estate which owns Delhi’s oldest gallery.

It is curated by critic-scholar Uma Nair. The works on view from  January 29^th – March 10^th  titled “Carved Contours’” represent Roy’s inspiration from the Kalighat and Pat traditions of Bengal. Done on cloth, board and paper, they feature simple monumental images of sari-clad women, village dancers and domestic animals besides Madonna and Christ and the famed Ramayan series.

“All of it eminently exemplifies his strikingly formalist pictorial language,” said the curator. “Roy (1887-1972), who was a frontline pupil of iconic Rabanindranath Tagore, developed a style that scholars note was a reaction against the Bengal School and Western tradition of art. He abandoned the use of European paints in favour of mineral and vegetable-based pigments made from rock-dust, tamarind seeds, alluvial mud and indigo,” she further added curator Uma Nair.