Air India’s prodigious art collection will soon be showcased at NGMA. The question now is, can they be made more accessible to the public?
2 years, 1 month ago

Air India’s prodigious art collection will soon be showcased at NGMA. The question now is, can they be made more accessible to the public?

The Hindu  

Air India has hit the headlines again, this time for bagging the world’s biggest commercial aviation deal — an order of a fleet of 470 jets from Airbus and Boeing. The baby elephant was the fee Dalí requested for designing ashtrays for Air India’s special clients and first-class guests, during a chance meeting in New York with one of the airline’s team. The art studio was the brainchild of Air India’s creative genius and commercial director, Bobby Kooka, known for his mischievous sense of humour and for being the creator of the airline’s mascot, the bowing maharaja. On the 18th floor of Air India’s famous Nariman Point building in Mumbai, the art studio comprised seven artists, a librarian, four to five managers and some administrative staff. Murals in the sky “Indian art was the inspiration for the motifs featured in the exotic interiors of the Air India aircraft fleet back then: immortal legends of Krishna, the refined beauty of Ajanta’s frescoes, B. Prabha’s series of Indian villagers at work and at leisure, and calico and paisley motifs from the airline’s art collection.

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History of this topic

India Art Fair 2025 | Who is the Indian art collector?
1 month, 1 week ago

India Art Fair 2025 | Who is the Indian art collector?

The Hindu  

Within six hours of day one at the India Art Fair, curator Alaiia Gujral has sold 10 pieces of the collectible design showcase ‘Shifting Horizons’. “We are getting a great response for younger contemporary artists from young collectors — they are looking for art that is accessible, reachable, yet good.” The knowledgeable Indian buyer Regardless of who they are, where …

This exhibit in Delhi gives a peep into Tarun Thakral’s vintage print-advertisement posters
1 year ago

This exhibit in Delhi gives a peep into Tarun Thakral’s vintage print-advertisement posters

The Hindu  

At a time when it is unexpected to even imagine the flags of India and Pakistan in one frame, a poster at an exhibition by Le Meridien, New Delhi, and the Archives of Tarun Thakral goes against the grain. This poster dates back to the ’50s and the artist has rightly captured the white folks on the ship,” says Tarun …

India Art Fair: Exploration of Indian art from the 18th to the 21st centuries
1 year, 1 month ago

India Art Fair: Exploration of Indian art from the 18th to the 21st centuries

Firstpost  

DAG brings together modernists such as M. F. Husain, F. N. Souza, S. H. Raza and Krishen Khanna alongside Western artists who travelled to India, such as Thomas Daniell and Marius Bauer, to explore the evolution of Indian art through the 18th to 21st centuries in its exhibition, India Past & Present for the 15th edition of India Art Fair. …

Three new spaces for art and culture and pondering the museum’s changing mandate
1 year, 5 months ago

Three new spaces for art and culture and pondering the museum’s changing mandate

The Hindu  

Last year, on a whim, I wrote to British-Indian sculptor Anish Kapoor, inviting him, along with dissident Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, and award winning West African architect Francis Kere, to create public artworks in India. But, what had driven me to this illogical invite was the fact that both Indian gallery art and public art rarely ever make magnanimous and …

A peek into Air India’s magnificent collection of art
1 year, 7 months ago

A peek into Air India’s magnificent collection of art

The Hindu  

Air India recently displayed a series of art works, meticulously collected over 80 years, at its booking offices, lounges, and pavilions across the globe. Air India pavilions across the world dazzled with displays of gold zari embroidered and woven textiles, gilded Tanjore paintings, polychrome wooden temple sculptures, and replicas of classical South Indian bronze figurines — dolls with musical instruments …

Air India’s grand art legacy now accessible to the public
1 year, 8 months ago

Air India’s grand art legacy now accessible to the public

Live Mint  

At Air India offices and lounges around the globe, visitors would once be treated to paintings specially commissioned to Indian artists such as M.F. Given to the National Gallery of Modern Art for safekeeping and digital archiving following the sale of the airline to the Tata Group in October 2021, 200 of these works are now on display in Mumbai …

Dali's ashtray in Mumbai
1 year, 9 months ago

Dali's ashtray in Mumbai

Hindustan Times  

Uttara Parikh was a young advertising executive in the Bombay office of Air India, when one day in 1967, the phone rang. The elephant was needed to pay Salvador Dali, the Spanish surrealist painter, for an artefact he was designing, commissioned by a team of Air India executives, who met the painter in New York. Uttara Parikh in her Air …

Inside the Maharaja’s treasure chest
1 year, 9 months ago

Inside the Maharaja’s treasure chest

Hindustan Times  

MUMBAI: A prized possession sits right at the centre of the dome at the National Gallery of Modern Art, which is currently home to the exhibition, Maharaja’s Treasure: Select Works of Art from the Famed Air India Collection. Fuelled by AI founder JRD Tata’s philosophy that all their booking offices abroad should showcase the best of India, AI’s commercial department, …

Harmony of the spirit to be displayed at the India Art Fair
2 years, 10 months ago

Harmony of the spirit to be displayed at the India Art Fair

Firstpost  

The shapes and characters of Sudip Roy’s paintings move against a huge area, much like a landscape. The impressive participation of Aakriti Art Gallery, led by Vikram Bachhawat, at the 13th edition of the Indian Art Fair, as it has done in previous editions, demonstrates the gallery’s commitment to serious and important endeavours. We already know that it has taken …

65 Indian artists will get together in Italy for a groundbreaking exhibition in November
3 years, 4 months ago

65 Indian artists will get together in Italy for a groundbreaking exhibition in November

The Hindu  

Sometimes art is the best catharsis. Curated by Myna Mukherjee and Davide Quadrio in collaboration with Turin’s annual contemporary art fair, Artissima, Hub India is backed by many players from the world of culture and art. Discussing the multi-part project, the curators outlined some of the main issues in a joint statement: “Crossing the cultural rubicon between modern and contemporary …

Grounded in art: Highlights from the Air India collection
3 years, 5 months ago

Grounded in art: Highlights from the Air India collection

Hindustan Times  

If you flew Air-India in its heyday, your journey started long before you boarded the flight. Meera Dass, an art historian and conservation architect who is working on a book about the archive, says the collection “represents Indian modernism — a young country intent on showing the world its best side”. “They’d planned to break up the collection and showcase …

Flying on the wings of Air India nostalgia
3 years, 8 months ago

Flying on the wings of Air India nostalgia

Live Mint  

These days, the ticket to elsewhere lies in tapping through Facebook memories or surfing the internet. The website founders, Piyush Khaitan, managing director of the fintech company NeoGrowth Credit, and Vivek Matthai, a dairy consultant, are avid philatelists who started collecting Air India memorabilia about eight years ago. In a Zoom call, Bengaluru-based Khaitan, 63, begins the story with a …

Nervous officials pass the buck on Air India’s treasures
5 years, 9 months ago

Nervous officials pass the buck on Air India’s treasures

The Hindu  

Even as the complex process to sell the beleaguered state-run Air India is under way, a cloud hangs over the airline’s massive art collection, which includes works by M.F. A 2017 proposal to set up a museum at the Air India building at Mumbai’s Nariman Point had to be abandoned when the Union Cabinet decided to privatise the airline. A …

As Air India's poor performance continues, govt should take up privatisation urgently
7 years, 8 months ago

As Air India's poor performance continues, govt should take up privatisation urgently

Firstpost  

when the government itself has thrown up its hands on pumping in more money into the ailing Maharajah, disinvestment is the best bet as it may make the portly Maharajah more nimble footed New Delhi: Air India can “survive” disinvestment and emerge stronger, says Chairman and MD Ashwani Lohani in an article published today. Lohani’s emotional blog castigates Air India’s …

Air India disinvestment: Group of ministers to decide fate of airline's massive art collection
7 years, 8 months ago

Air India disinvestment: Group of ministers to decide fate of airline's massive art collection

Firstpost  

The fate of the priceless artwork collection of Air India, acquired over the past 60 years, will be decided by a group of ministers which is looking into the proposal for the air carrier’s disinvestment, official sources said. New Delhi: The fate of the priceless artwork collection of Air India, acquired over the past 60 years, will be decided by …

Mumbai's iconic Air India building to display the airline's artworks in one-of-a-kind museum
9 years, 9 months ago

Mumbai's iconic Air India building to display the airline's artworks in one-of-a-kind museum

Firstpost  

The iconic Air India building in Mumbai is set to house a one-of-a-kind museum that will exhibit artwork acquired by the airlines over 60 years. The Air India building overlooking Marine Drive in Mumbai is iconic for its architecture and location. And now it’s set to house a one-of-a-kind museum exhibiting artworks accumulated by the India’s oldest surviving airlines over …

Air India art collection goes on exhibit for first time
11 years, 7 months ago

Air India art collection goes on exhibit for first time

India TV News  

New Delhi: For the first time, Air India's iconic collection of artworks by Indian masters M F Husain, S H Raza, B Prabha and Anjali Ela Menon among others housed in its various offices across the country have been brought together at an exhibition here. Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh yesterday inaugurated the "Air India salutes Indian Masters" exhibition at …

Where are the art lovers?
14 years, 8 months ago

Where are the art lovers?

Hindustan Times  

It is no city secret. What else explains the 17,000 artworks at National Gallery of Modern Art, Delhi’s Prada museum, lying ignored? HT Image Set up in 1954 at Jaipur House near India Gate, NGMA’s old wing, with its marble flooring and arched corridors, is stately. Some of India’s contemporary master painters, also the most expensive, are here—BC Sanyal, Tyeb …

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