GALLERY MISSION Sundaram Tagore Gallery is devoted to examining the exchange of ideas between Western and non-Western cultures. With spaces in Hong Kong, Singapore and New York City (in Chelsea and on Madison Avenue), the gallery was the first to focus exclusively on the rise of globalization in contemporary art. The gallery represents painters, sculptors and photographers from around the world. They each work in different mediums and use diverse techniques, but share a passion for cross-cultural dialogue. The gallery is renowned for its support of cultural activities—including poetry readings, book launches, music performances and film screenings—that further its mission of East-West exchange.
ANILA QUAYYUM AGHA Anila Quayyum Agha examines issues of global politics, cultural identity, mass media and gender roles in her multi-disciplinary practice. The Pakistani-American artist is best known for her immersive, large-scale light installations in which she laser-cuts elaborate patterns into three-dimensional cubes. Suspended and lit from within, the cubes cast lace-like, floor-to-ceiling shadows that completely transform the surrounding environment, alluding to the richly ornamented public spaces such as mosques that Agha was excluded from as a female growing up in Lahore. In addition to her suspended light installations, Agha also creates wall-mounted sculptural works, including her Flowers series (2018) that explores love and loss inspired by the mixed emotions she experienced following her son’s wedding and mother’s passing, events that happened in the same year. Although these works may appear decorative, they are imbued with meaning, from the floral patterns that express the beauty and femininity of her mother, to the metallic threads commonly used for wedding dresses in Pakistan. The visual elements collectively amplify the interplay between the matrimonial and the funereal, and by extension, the larger cycle of life. To produce these elaborate works, Agha laser-cuts vibrantly hued encaustic paper with intricate patterns and adorns them with light-reflecting embroidery and beads. These exquisitely detailed drawings are framed within shadow boxes, allowing light to pass through the cut-outs and cast patterned shadows in a manner similar to her large-scale light installations. The framing and shadows allow these works to transcend their two-dimensionality. Anila Quayyum Agha has an M.F.A.in fiber arts from the University of North Texas. She has exhibited her work across the globe, including in the 2018 Kansas City Biennale, curated by Dan Cameron; the Peabody Essex Museum, Massachusetts; the Brooklyn Academy of Music, New York; the Dallas Contemporary Art Museum, Texas; the National Museum of Sculpture, Valladolid, Spain; and the Cheongju Craft Biennale, Korea. Her work is in the collections of the Cincinnati Art Museum, Ohio; the Grand Rapids Art Museum, Michigan; and the Kiran Nader Art Museum, New Delhi. In 2014, Agha was awarded the popular and juried vote at ArtPrize for her installation Intersections, a first in the history of the Grand Rapids-based competition. Born in Lahore, Pakistan, 1965 | Lives and works in Indianapolis, Indiana
Shimmering Mirage, 2016, lacquered steel and halogen bulb, 36 x 36 x 36 inches/91.4 x 91.4 x 91.4 cm edition 1of 3
Flowers (Red and White Squares), 2017, mixed media on paper (encaustic red square with white stitching in center), 29.5 x 29.5 inches/74.9 x 74.9 cm
Ephemeral Bloom - Teal, 2017, mixed media on paper, 30 x 30 inches/76.2 x 76.2 cm
MIYA ANDO
Miya Ando is an American artist known for her metal paintings that encapsulate both ephemerality and permanence. A descendant of Bizen sword makers, Ando spent her childhood among Buddhist priests in a temple in Okayama, Japan, and later, in California. She combines the traditional techniques of her ancestry with modern industrial technology, skillfully transforming sheets of metal into ephemeral, abstract paintings suffused with color. Working across two and three dimensions, Ando’s oeuvre contains abstract painting and sculpture, including large-scale public art pieces that reflect the transitory essence of life. Miya Ando has a Bachelor of Arts degree in East Asian studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and attended Yale University and Stanford University to study Buddhist iconography and imagery. She apprenticed with the master metalsmith Hattori Studio in Japan, followed by a residency at Northern California’s Public Art Academy. Her work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions, including at The Noguchi Museum, New York; Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) Museum, Savannah, Georgia; The Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York; and the American University Museum, Washington D.C. Her work has also been included in extensive group exhibitions at institutions such as Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), California; Bronx Museum and Queens Museum of Art, New York; and The Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, New York. In 2015, her work was exhibited in Frontiers Reimagined at the 56th Venice Biennale. Ando is included in the public collections of Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), Detroit Institute of Arts Museum (DIA), Luft Museum in Germany, as well as numerous private collections. She has been the recipient of several grants and awards, including the prestigious Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant Award. Ando has produced several public commissions, most notably a thirty-foot-tall sculpture in London built from World Trade Center steel to mark the ten-year anniversary of 9/11, for which she was nominated for a DARC Award in Best Light Art Installation, as well as for The Glass House in New Canaan, Connecticut, designed by renowned architect Philip Johnson, which is now a museum and National Historic Landmark. Born in Los Angeles, 1973 | Lives and works in New York
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Blue Taupe Mandala, 2017, dye, pigment, resin and urethane on stainless steel, 40 inches/101.4 cm tondo 9
YĹŤgen blue bronze, 2016, dye, pigment, urethane and resin on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.4 x 91.4 cm 10
Ephemeral Vermillion, 2015, urethane, pigment and resin on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.4 x 91.4 cm 11
Kasumi December Green Blue, 2017, pigment, resin and urethane on aluminum, 36 x 36 inches/91.4 x 91.4 cm 12
October Cloud 4.4.10, 2018, ink and dye on aluminum composite, 48 x 48 inches/122 x 122 cm 13
EDWARD BURTYNSKY Photographer Edward Burtynsky chronicles human impact on nature in his disarmingly beautiful images of industrial landscapes around the world. Burtynsky’s painterly, often abstract photographs, frequently shot from an aerial perspective, show the massive scale of environmental devastation. Burtynsky began photographing nature in the early 1980s. His early works were intimate explorations of Canada’s unspoiled landscapes. By the late 1980s, however, he turned away from the quickly disappearing natural terrain, realizing that this was the world we were losing not the one we were to inherit. Instead, he began to investigate industrial incursions into land with arresting results. His most recent series, Water, begun in 2007, is his largest and most ambitious project to date. It documents the scale and impact of manufacturing and human consumption on the world’s water supplies. In 2015, Colorado River Delta #2, one of the works from this series, was included in Frontiers Reimagined, a collateral event of the 56th Venice Biennale. Edward Burtynsky was recognized with a TED Prize in 2005. In 2006 he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada, one of the nation’s highest civilian honors. He holds six honorary doctorate degrees and his distinctions include the National Magazine Award, the MOCCA Award, the Outreach Award at the Rencontres d’Arles and the Applied Arts Magazine Complete Book Photography Award. In 2006, Edward Burtynsky was the subject of the award-winning documentary Manufactured Landscapes, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival. His newest film, Watermark, debuted in 2013. Edward Burtynsky’s works are in the collections of more than fifty museums worldwide, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the AlbrightKnox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris; The Photographer’s Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid; and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. Born in St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, 1955 | Lives and works in Toronto
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Salt Pan #18, Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, 2016, chromogenic color print, 48 x 64 inches/122 x 162.6 cm, edition 4 of 6 15
Salt Pans #20, Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, 2016, chromogenic color print, 39 x 52 inches/99.1 x 132.1 cm, edition 5 of 9 16
Salt Pans #25, Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, India, 2016, chromogenic color print, 39 x 52 inches/99.1 x 132.1 cm, edition 7 of 9 17
LALLA ESSADI Lalla Essaydi was born and raised in Morocco and educated in the West before moving to Saudi Arabia for several years. The United States-based artist explores issues of gender, cross-cultural identity and the prevalent myths of Orientalism. Working across multiple disciplines—including painting, video, installation and photography—Essaydi challenges the social norms and hierarchies that shaped her life as a young girl in Morocco. In her photographs, Essaydi explores spaces both real and symbolic. Raised in a traditional Muslim household, which included designated areas just for women, Essaydi is intimately familiar with how Arab women’s personal histories are interlinked with segregated spaces. Traditionally in Islamic culture, men move about freely in public spaces, while women are often confined to private realms, away from public view. Over time, physical borders come to define social hierarchies and for women, stepping outside these boundaries, literal or otherwise, can lead to confinement in an actual space. Through her creative practices, Essaydi has come to understand how these longstanding cultural mores have informed her views as an artist and as a woman living between two worlds. Lalla Essaydi was born in Morocco in 1956 and received a Master of Fine Arts degree from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in Massachusetts. She has exhibited her work across the globe, including at the Asian Civilisations Museum and the National Museum of Singapore; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and The San Diego Museum of Art, California; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of African Art and the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington D.C. Her work is in numerous permanent collections, including the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore; Musée du Louvre, Paris; the British Museum, London; the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.; the Art Institute of Chicago; the Brooklyn Museum of Art; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and the Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art, Doha.
Born in Morocco, 1956 | Lives and works in New York, Boston and Marrakesh 18
Harem #7, 2009, chromogenic print mounted to aluminum with a UV protective laminate, 60 x 48 inches/152.4 x 121.9 cm edition 10 19
Les Femmes du Maroc #28, 2006, chromogenic prints mounted to aluminum with a UV protective laminate, 48 x 60 inches/121.9 x 152.4 cm edition 10 20
Les Femmes du Maroc: La Sultan, 2008, chromogenic print mounted to aluminum with a UV protective laminate, 30 x 40 inches/76.2 x 101.6 cm edition 15 21
Harem Revisited #32, 2012, chromogenic prints mounted to aluminum with a UV protective laminate, 60 x 96 inches/152.4 x 243.8 cm edition 10
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GOLNAZ FATHI Drawing on her extensive training as a calligrapher, Golnaz Fathi uses texts and letters as formal elements, transforming traditional calligraphy into a personal artistic language. She studied classical calligraphy before she established her own style of working, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Graphics from Azad Art University, Tehran, and completing further studies at the Iranian Society of Calligraphy. Fathi works in fine pen, mostly on varnished raw, rectangular, polyptych canvases, in a limited palette of white, black, red and yellow. She layers the surface of the canvas with thousands of minute marks that echo the curvilinear forms of calligraphic letters and words. These intricate lines coalesce into minimalist compositions that can be read in multiple ways—as landscapes, electronic transmissions or atmospheric phenomena. She refrains from titling her works, which allows the viewer free reign to assign his or her own interpretation. The basis of Fathi’s practice is siah-mashq, a traditional exercise in which the calligrapher writes cursive letters across the page in a dense, semi-abstract formation. The letters aren’t meant to form words or convey meaning, but rather strengthen the skill of the scribe. Fathi reinterprets this technique, drawing inspiration from Western and Eastern sources, including American Abstract Expressionism, as well as the work of Iranian and Middle Eastern modernists who pioneered the use of the written word as a pictorial element in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By skillfully combining these various elements, she has created a unique visual language with universal appeal. Golnaz Fathi’s works are in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Brighton & Hove Museum, East Sussex, England; Carnegie Mellon University, Doha, Qatar; the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur; the Asian Civilisations Museum, Singapore; the British Museum, London; the Devi Art Foundation, New Delhi; and The Farjam Collection, Dubai. In 2011, Fathi was chosen as a Young Global Leader Honoree by the World Economic Forum and in 2015, her painting Every Breaking Wave (1) was included in Frontiers Reimagined, a collateral event of the 56th Venice Biennale. Born in Tehran, 1972 | Lives and works in Tehran and Paris 24
untitled, 2014, acrylic, pen and varnish on canvas, 57.5 x 50.4 inches/146 x 128 cm 25
untitled, 2017, acrylic, pen and varnish on canvas, 66.93 x 45.28 inches/170 x 115 cm 26
untitled, 2017, acrylic, pen and varnish on canvas, 15.75 x 23.62 inches/40 x 60 cm, diptych 40x30 each 27
ZHENG LU The gravity-defying sculptural works of Zheng Lu are deeply influenced by his study of traditional Chinese calligraphy, an art form he practiced growing up in a literary family. Zheng Lu uses language as a pictorial element, inscribing the surface of his stainless-steel sculptures with thousands of Chinese characters derived from texts and poems of historical significance. To create his metal sculptures, the artist begins with a plaster base. He then laser-cuts characters into metal, and in a fashion similar to linking chainmail, uses heat to connect the pictographs so that they can be shaped to the support. The resulting works are technically astonishing; their fluid, animated forms are charged with the energy (qi) of the universe, belying their steel composite. Zheng Lu graduated from Lu Xun Fine Art Academy, Shenyang, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in sculpture in 2003. In 2007, he received his Master of Fine Arts degree in sculpture from the Central Academy of Fine Art, Beijing, while also attending an advanced study program at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris. Zheng Lu has participated in numerous exhibitions in China and abroad, including at the Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem; the Ekaterina Cultural Foundation, Moscow; Musée Océanographique, Monaco; Musée Maillol, Paris; the National Museum of China, Beijing; the Long Museum and the Shanghai Duolun Museum of Modern Art, Shanghai. In 2015, the artist had a solo exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Taipei, one of the leading institutions in the region. Born in Chi Feng, Inner Mongolia, 1978 | Lives and works in Beijing
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Jin Bo, 2017, stainless steel, 69.7 x 31.5 x 44.9 inches/177 x 80 x 114 cm 29
JASON MARTIN Jason Martin creates lush, sculptural paintings by building up thick applications of paint, transforming two-dimensional canvases into otherworldly terrains. Dividing his time between London and Portugal, Martin explores the rudiments of painting through purely abstract compositions, which he produces by layering swaths of oil or acrylic paint across metal or Plexiglas substrates. Once he applies the paint, he pulls a comb-like tool through the surface in one motion—gestural but controlled—to produce opulent, rolling waves of color, which catch and reflect the light. Martin’s process-based approach to examining the materiality of a painting alludes to the influence of American artists such as David Budd and Robert Ryman. In exploring the properties of accumulated paint, Martin uses varying quantities, depending on the piece. Some of his works are coated in modest applications of paint, resulting in rhythmic striations that echo the fine grooves of a vinyl record, while others are layered so thickly the heavy impasto juts out from the frame constituting low reliefs. He tends to work with limited palettes, although even his monochrome paintings, densely layered in pure pigment, reveal nuanced shifts in tone and modulated color as the light negotiates the complex topography of ridges and channels. Jason Martin studied at Goldsmiths, University of London, and began to exhibit his work in the early 1990s. Since then, he has shown his work across the globe, including at the Brooklyn Museum of Art; the Las Vegas Art Museum; the Denver Art Museum, Colorado; Museum gegenstandsfreier Kunst, Otterndorf, Germany; Sinaloa Art Museum, Mexico; the Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Finland; and the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. His work is in the collections of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C.; Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, England; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Salzburg; the Museum of Modern Art, La Spezia, Italy; and Es Baluard Museum, Palma de Mallorca, Spain. Born in Jersey, Channel Islands, 1970 | Lives and works in London and Melides, Portugal
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untitled (Quinacridone magenta), 2016, mixed media on aluminum, 20.5 x 20.5 inches/52 x 52 cm 31
RICARDO MAZAL Ricardo Mazal, one of Mexico’s most prominent contemporary artists, is known for his lush abstract oil paintings in which he explores spiritual themes. He is perhaps best known for his near decade-long investigations into the sacred burial rituals of diverse cultures, from the Mayan tomb of The Red Queen in Palenque, Chiapas, Mexico, to the Buddhist prayer flags of Bhutan. These studies yielded a succession of large, multidisciplinary bodies of work reflective of the artist’s observations. However, his most recent series, Violeta and Prague, are imbued with a more personal narrative, increasingly transitioning Mazal from witness to author. Ricardo Mazal has exhibited extensively in galleries and museums throughout the Americas, Asia and Europe. Since 2000, he has had fourteen individual museum exhibitions in Mexico and the United States, including five retrospectives of his work at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo de Monterrey (2000), the Museo de Arte Moderno de la Ciudad de México (2006), the Museo de Arte de Querétaro (2009), the Museo de Arte Abstracto Manuel Felguerez (2010) and the Center for Contemporary Arts Santa Fe, as well as thematic exhibitions in the Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art (2006), the Museo Nacional de Antropología (2004-2005) and the Centro Cultural Estación Indianilla, among others. In 2015 Mazal’s work was included in Frontiers Reimagined, a Collateral Event of the 56th Venice Biennale. Mazal’s work is included in the permanent collections of The Minneapolis Institute of Art, Minnesota; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona; Museo de Arte Moderno, Mexico City; Museo de Arte Abstracto Manuel Felguérez, Zacatecas, Mexico; Maeght Foundation, Paris; Centro de las Artes, Monterrey, Mexico; Cirque du Soleil, Montreal; the Peninsula Hotel, Shanghai; and Deutsche Bank, New York and Germany.
Born in Mexico City, 1950 | Lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico and New York
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ODENWALD 1152 N.13, 2008, oil on linen 78 x 120 inches/198 x 305 cm 33
White and Grey Band 1, 2017, oil on linen, 66 x 76 inches/168 x 193 cm
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HIROSHI SENJU Japanese-born painter Hiroshi Senju is noted worldwide for his sublime waterfall and cliff images, which are often monumental in scale. He combines a minimalist visual language rooted in Abstract Expressionism with ancient painting techniques unique to Japan. Senju is widely recognized as one of the few contemporary masters of the thousand-year-old nihonga style of painting, using pigments made from minerals, ground stone, shell and corals suspended in animal-hide glue. Hiroshi Senju was the first Asian artist to receive an Honorable Mention Award at the Venice Biennale (1995), and has participated in numerous exhibitions including The New Way of Tea, curated by Alexandra Munroe, at the Japan Society and the Asia Society in New York, 2002; Paintings on Fusuma at the Tokyo National Museum, 2003; and Frontiers Reimagined at the Venice Biennale, 2015. He was recently awarded the Foreign Minister’s Commendation from the Japanese government for contributions to art. In May 2017 he was honored with the Isamu Noguchi Award. Public installations include seventy-seven murals at Juko-in, a sub-temple of Daitoku-ji, a Zen Buddhist temple in Japan, and a monumental waterfall at Haneda Airport in Tokyo. The Benesse Art Site of Naoshima Island also houses two large-scale installations. Most recently, Senju completed two monumental paintings for Kongobuji Temple at Koyasan. The temple is a sacred site in Japanese Buddhism and the works—a waterfall and a cliff—were commissioned to celebrate Koyasan’s 1,200th anniversary. Ahead of the dedication at Kongobuji, the paintings will be on view in several major museums throughout Japan until they are installed as fusuma (sliding doors) in the summer of 2020. Senju’s work is in The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri; the Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto; the Museum of Modern Art, Toyama, Japan; the Yamatane Museum of Art, Tokyo; Tokyo University of the Arts; and the Kushiro Art Museum, Hokkaido. In 2009, Skira Editore published a monograph of his work titled Hiroshi Senju. The Hiroshi Senju Museum Karuizawa in Japan opened in 2011. 36
Born in Tokyo, 1958 | Lives and works in New York
Waterfall, 2018, natural, acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 44.1 x 63.8 inches/112 x 162 cm 37
At World’s End #1, 2017, natural, acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 71.6 x 89.5 inches/181.8 x 227.3 cm
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Waterfall, 2018, natural pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 28.7 x 35.8 inches/73 x 91 cm 40
Waterfall, 2014, acrylic pigments on Japanese mulberry paper, 102 x 76.3 inches/259 x 194 cm 41
CHUN KWANG YOUNG Chun Kwang Young, whose work is on view in Kwang Young Chun: Aggregations, a solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum, began his career as a painter. He began to experiment with paper sculpture in the mid-1990s and over time his work has evolved in complexity and scale. The development of his signature technique was sparked by a childhood memory of seeing medicinal herbs wrapped in mulberry paper tied into small packages. Chun’s work subtly merges the techniques, materials, and traditional sentiment of his Korean heritage with the conceptual freedom he experienced during his Western education. Chun Kwang Young received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Hongik University, Seoul and a Master of Fine Arts from the Philadelphia College of Art, Pennsylvania. His work is in numerous public collections, including the Rockefeller Foundation and the United Nations, New York; the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.; the Philadelphia Society Building, Pennsylvania; the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, and the Seoul Museum of Art; the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra; the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; and the National Museum of Fine Arts, Malta. He was named Artist of the Year by the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, in 2001 and in 2009 he was awarded the Presidential Prize in the 41st Korean Culture and Art Prize by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism. Kwang Young Chun: Aggregations, a major retrospective of the artist’s work, is on view at the Brooklyn Museum through July 2019. Born in Hongchun, Korea, 1944 | Lives in works in Seongnam, Korea
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Aggregation 16 - NV092, 2016, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 59.4 x 59.4 inches/151 x 151 cm 43
Aggregation 15 - SE054, 2015, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 36.2 x 46.5 inches/92 x 118 cm 44
Aggregation 10 - JL020 Red, 2010, mixed media with Korean mulberry paper, 44.9 x 76.8 inches/114 x 195 cm 45
SUNDARAM TAGORE GALLERIES new york new york hong kong singapore
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President and curator: Sundaram Tagore Director, New York: Susan McCaffrey Director, Singapore: Melanie Taylor Registrar: Julia Occhiogrosso Designer: Russell Whitehead Editor: Kieran Doherty
WWW.SUNDARAMTAGORE.COM Text © 2019 Sundaram Tagore Gallery Photographs © 2019 Sundaram Tagore Gallery All rights reserved under international copyright conventions. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.