Tradition And Innovation: Prints From Post-Independence India is as much an art exhibition as it is a lesson into the country's art history. With more than 80 prints, the show celebrates 50 years of independence in India (1947-1997).
According to curator Roobina Karode, visiting professor at Delhi College of Art, the birth of print-making as a fine art coincided with India's independence. She says: 'The British used it primarily for administrative purposes ? it was around 1955 that printmaking in India received a new thrust through the pioneering efforts made by a few talented teachers who used it for individual expression and to explore the uniqueness of the medium than to reproduce ideas already embodied in paintings and sculpture.'
Artists featured in this exhibition include Somnath Hore, Kanwal Krish-na, Krishna Reddy, Jagmohan Chopra, Jai Krishna and K. G. Subramanyan whose works in the 1960s were of 'pioneering significance', Karode says. But today print-making is practised almost all over the country and comprises a pluralism of styles and images.
The exhibition runs until February 18. The University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong. Monday to Saturday 9.30am-6pm, Sunday 1.30pm-5.30pm. Tel: 2241 5500.