Untitled 

This untitled painting was created by Jagdish Swaminathan, an artist who was active in India throughout the second half of the twentieth century. It features a minimal arrangement of color blocks, and floating symbols in the sky. Swaminathan was a member of Group 1890, a collective that sought to challenge the dominance of the Bombay Progressive Artists' Group, which they felt were too Eurocentric in their outlook. The group's name referred to the address where they first met, and also alluded to the numerous revolutions that had taken place in Europe during the 19th century, suggesting their ambition to provoke similar social change. The symbols in Swaminathan's paintings borrow from tribal art, and his practice represented an attempt to move away from Western academic styles. His work is self-consciously progressive and critiques the art institutions of his time. To understand Swaminathan's place in the development of Indian modernism, it is important to look at manifestos, exhibition catalogs, and critical reviews from the period. By focusing on the social and institutional context of the artist's work, we can arrive at a deeper understanding of its meaning and significance.