Lalit Kala Akademi is pleased to present this volume to the art connoisseurs and art novitiates. The project conceived as a part of the ongoing programme of the Lalit Kala Akademi, provides a comprehensive coverage of elaborate references of the artists who have at some or the other point of time been associated with the Akademi.
Immense homework and rigorous preliminary work has gone into making available this compendium for easy reference and necessary documentation. Having access to the volume published in the year 1981 was of but little help now. As interest in modern art grew so did the criteria and parameters and with them the need to consolidate and grow anew. With this background, we planned to publish this volume that would respond to the needs of the art fraternity. Highly sensitive and well documented the task has not been an easy one but all in all it is hoped that it has been worth waiting for. However, some deficiencies could have inadvertently crept in but these should be viewed in the context of the vastness of the task in hand.
A daunting task, the preparation of this directory, involved a team of devoted persons whose sincere efforts brought the volume to fruition.
Dr. Jyotish joshi has been associated with the project right from its inception. We are grateful to him for having worked with great patience toward achieving this result.
We also extend our gratitude to Shri Vikram Mehra, Shri Dinesh Kumar and Ms. Manjari Sihare and other members of the team whose painstaking efforts are reflected in this publication.
Editorial Note
Lalit Kala Akademi is apex cultural body for the development and promotion of visual art forms in India. Akademi is constantly trying its best to preserve our rich artistic traditions by way of making fresco copies, photo documentation and creating database of artists and their creations. Printing a revised and updated edition of directory of artists is a long awaited project and there is a great demand for it from artists, galleries, collectors and other agencies.
The Akademi published first and second edition of artist's directory in the year 1961 and 1981 respectively and after a gap of 25 years this new edition is in your hands. The project was initially undertaken in 1995 but was abandoned due to various administrative reasons. In 2004 project was again taken up, coinciding golden jubilee celebrations of Akademi, and entries were called from all over India from artists who have participated in our National Exhibition of art from 1954 onwards. India being a very big country with thousands of practicing artists it was necessary to make some criteria for inclusion in the directory. Secondly it was decided to include only the living artists. We have received entries from 1700 artist out of 3000 requests made. Many entries received were incomplete i.e. some without images and some without any biographical sketch. Many important and senior artists have not responded to our repeated reminders. But without adding these stalwarts the directory remains incomplete. That is why we have added more than 300 artists by collecting their data's from various sources at the very last stage. This is one of the reasons for some delay in its publication.
The biggest task was to go through the CV's of 2000 artists and creating a uniform pattern for all the entries. A list of abbreviation was finalized to accommodate maximum information on each artist. Artists address, phone and e-mail numbers were included to make it more useful. A number of times crosschecking was done to make it error free as much possible. This present edition is in full color to give a clearer view to the creations of the each artist.
I am sincerely thankful to Dr. Sudhakar Sharma, Secretary, showing his strong conviction and faith in me for carrying out this assignment.
Everybody will agree with me that this kind of huge task can never be conclusive. There will be many artists who were left out due to various reasons. Akademi has organized two more nationals after the list was finalized and there will be a number of new artists who could not find place in this volume. Therefore there is always a need to bring revised and updated editions at regular intervals.
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