Bombay Progressive Artists' Group

[1] The group wished to break with the revivalist nationalism established by the Bengal school of art and to encourage an Indian avant-garde, engaged at an international level.

The Group was formed just months after the 14 August 1947 "Partition of India" and Pakistan that resulted in religious rioting and death of tens of thousands of people displaced by the new borders.

[2] Their intention was to "paint with absolute freedom for content and technique, almost anarchic, save that we are governed by one or two sound elemental and eternal laws, of aesthetic order, plastic co-ordination and colour composition.

The artists such as Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, Krishen Khanna and Mohan Samant continue the activities of the group with three original PAG members M F Husain, H A Gade and K H Ara in India for few more years.

European Modernism was the most distinctive influence on the group, but its members worked in dramatically different styles, from the Expressionism of Souza to the pure abstraction of Gaitonde.