The GROUP 1890 exhibition was held from 20 to 29 October 1963 at Lalit Kala Akademi, Rabindra Bhavan in New Delhi, India.
The group was an entirely male association with 12 members which 'stood passionately and romantically for values of modernism that signaled change'.
[1] The members were Raghav Kaneria, M. Reddeppa Naidu, Ambadas Khobragade, Rajesh Mehra, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Jagdish Swaminathan, Himmat Shah, Jeram Patel, S. G. Nikam, Eric Bowen, Jyoti Bhatt, and Balkrishna Patel.
A meeting of the artist group was held from 12 to 14 May 1967 in Baroda to discuss the possibility of having their second exhibition which did not eventually materialise.
The GROUP 1890 exhibition was dedicated to the memory of Georges Braque and was inaugurated by the then Prime Minister Sri Jawaharlal Nehru.
The exhibition was conceptualised as a ground to showcase the members' artistic creation and as a chance to make the group's manifesto public.
A full-page manifesto and an introductory article titled 'Surrounded by Infinity...' written by the surrealist poet Octavio Paz on 12 October 1963 in New Delhi was included in the exhibition catalogue, along with the artist biographies.
'[5] A review of the GROUP 1890 exhibition written by Charles Fabri, Hungarian Archaeologist and Art Historian in India, was published in The Statesman on 21 October 1963 [6] The term 'group 1890' was used to describe both the exhibition title, the artist collective, and a movement these artists provoked.
Many of them were graduated from the University of Baroda and were in their early 30s when the GROUP 1890 exhibition was held at Lalit Kala Akademi.
Having come to a common understanding regarding the vitiating influences which hinder the unfolding of authentic development in art, it was decided to launch the group 1890 movement.
Exhibitions: Participated in several group shows including Five Young South Indian Painters, 1957 (USIS, Madras); South Indian Society of Painters, 1958 (Award); Congress Exhibitions (Madras) 1960 and 1961 (Award), annual exhibition of the Bombay Art Society, 1961 (Prize) and Hyderabad Art Society (Prize); regular participant in the National Exhibition of Art, held one-man show, 1958 (Ootacammund); Member, Progressive Painters Association; Represented in the collection of the Lalit Kala Akademi.
Born 1928; studied painting in Delhi and Warsaw; works in oils as well as in graphic media; has had a chequered career working variously as a journalist in Hindi and English, as a writer of stories for children and as an art critic; has participated in group shows, in the National Exhibition of Art and in the First International Exhibition Saigon, the International Exhibition of Graphics, Poland and several other shows; held one-man show in December 1962; represented in the Lalit Kala Akademi collection and in the National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi; was Senior Art Teacher, Cambridge School, New Delhi.
Born 1933, Bhavnagar (Saurashtra); initial training in painting under Shri Jogubhai Shah and later studied of the Drawing Teacher's Course of the Government of Bombay and works as drawing teacher for a few years; studied under Prof. Bender in the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S.
Studied in the Art Department of the Delhi Polytechnic and did his diploma in painting in 1959; participated in numerous group shows and has held three solo shows in Delhi; participating regularly with 'The Unknown' group—a group of young painters of Delhi—of which he was President in 1961; participated in the National Exhibition of Art and annual shows of the AIFACS; studied in Rome on an Italian government scholarship.
University of Baroda (1944), post Diploma specialisation (1956); studied mural painting at Vanasthali Vidyapith, Jaipur (1953); he was Government of India Cultural Scholar; staff of the Faculty of Fine Arts, M.S.
By putting the two, horse and woman together he seems to be balancing the 2 life forces, the male and the female, the yin and the yang.
The woman is sometimes seen astride, at times the horse is beckoning her to an unknown land, coaxing her to explore the world.