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69
1928
Born in Sanjauli, Simla, Himachal Pradesh
1942
Matriculated from Sir Harcourt Butler High School,
New Delhi
1948
Briefly joined the Communist Party of India, where
he worked as a journalist and art critic for
Left
magazine until the mid-1950s
1955
Married Bhawani Pande
1956
Started working at People’s Publishing House as a
translator and editor, and joined evening classes
with the Art Department at Delhi Polytechnic,
New Delhi, where one of the teachers was Sailoz
Mookherjea
1958
Joined
Link
, a weekly news magazine, and
reported on South and South East Asian affairs
and art reviews. In the fall of that year, went to
Poland on a scholarship to learn printmaking at
the Academy of Fine Arts, Warsaw
1960
Exhibited at a three-man show with Piyare Kishan
Razdan and Narendra Dixit, inaugurated by M F
Husain
1962
Founded Group 1890 in August with artists G M
Sheikh, Jeram Patel, Himmat Shah, among others
1963
The first and only exhibition of Group 1980 in
New Delhi, inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru and
introduced by Octavio Paz
1965
Exhibited at Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
1965
Exhibited at Tokyo Biennale, Japan
1965
Exhibited at the
International Exhibition of Indian
Graphics
, organised by UNESCO, Poland
1966
Swaminathan started the short-lived journal
Contra ‘66
1968
Exhibited at the 1
st
International Triennale, Lalit
Kala Akademi, New Delhi, where he received an
honourable mention
Awarded Jawaharlal Nehru Scholarship to work
on his thesis “The Significance of the Traditional
Numen in Contemporary Art”
1969
Invited to serve on the international jury for the
São Paulo Biennial
1971
Exhibited at Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
1981
Invited by the government of Madhya Pradesh
to set up Roopankar, an art museum, at Bharat
Bhavan, Bhopal, where he served as the director
until 1990
Sculpture in Fiberglass
, Art Heritage, New Delhi
1982
Sculpture in Fiberglass
, Jehangir Art Gallery,
Mumbai
Exhibited at Contemporary Art Gallery, Ahmedabad
1986
Exhibited at 1
st
National Biennale, Bharat Bhavan,
Bhopal
1987
Exhibited at
Festival of India
, Moscow
1988
2
nd
National Biennale, Bharat Bhavan, Bhopal
Exhibited at Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi
Exhibited at
Seventeen Indian Painters
, Gallery
Chemould and Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai
Exhibited at
Festival of India
, Takaoka Municipal
Museum of Art and Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo
1990
Exhibited at Shridharani Gallery, New Delhi and
Gallery Chemould, Mumbai
1992
Collaboration/Combines
, Shridharani Gallery, New
Delhi; Jehangir Art Gallery and Gallery Chemould,
Mumbai
1993
Exhibited at Vadehra Art Gallery, New Delhi
Memorial
, All India Fine Arts and Crafts Society,
New Delhi
1994
Map, Monument, Fallen Mortal
, South London
Gallery, London
Works with Paper
, Contemporary Art Gallery,
Ahmedabad
House/Boat
, Oboro, Montreal
1994-95
Riverscape
, Birla Academy of Art and Culture and
Sakshi Gallery, Mumbai
Swaminathan passed away in New Delhi in 1994. The same
year, he was posthumously awarded the prestigious Kalidas
Samman award by the government of Madhya Pradesh.
The following is a list of shows where his works were
posthumously exhibited.
1996
House/Boat
, Winnipeg Art Gallery, Winnipeg, and
Vancouver Art Gallery, Vancouver
2005
Ashta Nayak: Eight Pioneers of Indian Art
, Aicon
Gallery, New York
2008
3 Masters Briefly
, Akar Prakar, Kolkata
Moderns
, Royal Cultural Centre, Amman, Jordan
organised by Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi in
collaboration with Embassy of India, Amman,
Jordan
2008-09
Paz Mandala
, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi
2009
In Search of the Vernacular
, Aicon Gallery,
New York
Bharat Ratna! Jewels of Modern Indian Art
,
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
JAGDISH SWAMINATHAN
(1928 – 1994)
2010
Manifestations IV,
Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
Modern Folk: The Folk Art Roots of the Modernist
Avant-Garde,
Aicon Gallery, New York
FromMiniature to Modern: Traditions in Transition,
Rob Dean Art, London in association with Pundole
Art Gallery, Mumbai
Figure/Landscape - Part One,
Aicon Gallery,
New York
2011
Masterclass,
Dhoomimal Art Gallery, New Delhi
Roots in the Air, Branches Below: Modern &
Contemporary Art from India,
San Jose Museum of
Art, San Jose
Manifestations V,
Delhi Art Gallery, New Delhi
Ethos V: Indian Art Through the Lens of History
(1900 to 1980)
, Indigo Blue Art, Singapore
Adbhutam: Rasa in Indian Art
, Centre of
International Modern Art (CIMA), Kolkata
2012
Through the Ages: South Asian Sculpture and
Painting from Antiquity to Modernism
, Aicon
Gallery, New York
Transits of a Wholetimer | J. Swaminathan: Years
1950-1969
, Gallery Espace, New Delhi
2014
Immutable Gaze Part I: Masterpieces of Modern
and Pre-Modern Indian Art
, Aicon Gallery,
New York