When P Mansaram joined Sir J. J. School of Arts in 1954, the Modern Art movement in India had already taken roots through group formations in Mumbai, Calcutta, Delhi and Chennai. In 1963-64, while on a scholarship in Amsterdam he visited London, Paris and New York where he met artists, galleryists and curators inlcuding F. N. Souza, Mohan Samant, Krishna Reddy, Natvar Bhavsar, Lakshmi Sihare, S. H. Raza, and Akbar Padamsee.
Later, at his studio at the Bhulabhai Memorial Institute in Mumbai, he was witness to the artistic vigor of M.F. Hussain, Tyeb Mehta, V. Gaitonde, Prafulla Dahanukar, and Ebrahim Alkazi, as they shared the same premises. His stint in Mumbai also afforded him close interactions with distinguished literati such as A. S. Raman, Khushwant Singh, Dr Dharmvir Bharti, Kamleshwar, Shobhaa De, Busy Bee, A. R. Kananagi, Manmohan Saral, G. Nadkarni, and K. B. Goel. In this show, Mansaram shares with us images—125 snapshots from his personal archives—of such people and places that influenced him, and form the key highlights of Modern Indian Art.
