New Delhi : Oxford Bookstore Connaught Place, in association with Delhi Art Gallery, organised a discussion on The Art of Portraiture, based on the book ‘Indian Portraits: The Face of a People’, by Kishore Singh, on 5th December 
2013. Mr. Singh enunciated his views amidst an illustrious gathering of artists and art aficionados. The event also displayed some select and engaging portraits from Delhi Art Gallery’s rich and extensive collection.
The art of modern portraiture came to India three centuries ago as part of a new, unexplored tradition brought in by colonial artists from Europe. Indian art till then had tended to depict attributes of godliness and kingship rather than particularities by way of portraits. The change was led by eighteenth century European artists who came in search of sitters and commissions for portraits in Madras and Calcutta, and later in Bombay, who were increasingly drawn to paint the princes. Soon, artists among royal ateliers began to 
experiment with the new medium of oil and canvas, and to emulate the work of the foreign artists while experimenting with chiaroscuro and perspective. While artists like Raja Ravi Varma were entirely self-taught, soon after, Indian artists like M. V. Dhurandhar, N. R. Sardesai, Pestonji Bomanji, M. F. Pithawalla and J. P. Gangooly trained in the art schools became celebrated portraitists. Photography also came to influence painted portraits, and painted photographs too were a rage. Portraits were painted by Amrita Sher-Gil as well as Jamini Roy, among other early modernists, and among the Bombay Progressives M. F. Husain and F. N. Souza proved most adept at it.
Delhi Art Gallery recently hosted an iconic exhibition of these magnificent portraits that trace the journey of the style of portraiture making across the centuries. Indian Portraits documents two-hundred-and-fifty-years of Indian portraiture with over 400 works by about 150 artists. The book records the Indian elite, the royal families, the women of India, mostly just courtesans, saints and sinners, national leaders and historical figures, as well as members of the artists’ intimate circle of friends and family. While the book documents all major artists who are known for painting or making sculptures in the form of portraits, it also includes several artists whose capability is only too obvious but who have remained unknown in the pantheon of Indian art. The book recognizes the contribution of these artists to portrait making and the rise of modernism in the country.