Newsgroups: soc.culture.indian
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 17:02:40 -0400 
From: "James J. White" <jw3u+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Indian art at Hunt Institute

Four Indian Artists Participate in International Exhibition

PITTSBURGH.  Four Indians are among the 86 artists chosen for the 7th
International Exhibition of Botanical Art & Illustration, presented by
the Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation at Carnegie Mellon
University.  The artists are Damodar Lal Gurjar, Jaggu Prasad and Ramesh
Chander Sharma from Rajasthan and the late Ganga Singh, senior artist at
the Forest Research Institute in Dehra Dun from 1911 to 1945.  The
exhibition is on display from 13 April to 31 July.

Gurjar, who has a diploma in Fine Arts from Rajasthan University, is
exhibiting two watercolors of bonsai pines and Jaggu Prasad two gouache
paintings of red apples.  Ramesh Chander Sharma, whose work has been
reproduced on greeting cards in Bombay and Delhi, will show a gouache of
Psidium guajava or guava.  Ganga Singh, who received the title of "Rai
Sahib" for outstanding contributions in the field of fine arts and whose
work was reproduced in Bor and Raizada's Some beautiful Indian climbers
and shrubs (1954), will be represented by an ink and wash of Dillenia
and a watercolor of Bombax malabaricum.

With the interest of art curator James J. White, the Hunt Institute is
making an effort to find and exhibit the best botanical artworks in
India.  A number of artworks for this and for future exhibitions was
located by White on a trip to India last Fall sponsored by the
Smithsonian Special Foreign Currency Program.

In preparation since the Institute's last International Exhibition in
1988, this show will also contain artworks by artists from Australia,
Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, England, Germany, Japan, The
Netherlands, People's Republic of China, Russia, Scotland, South Africa,
Sudan, the U.S. and Vietnam, including loans from the Japan Botanical
Art Society and Nihon-Kobunkan Co., Ltd. in Tokyo and Wageningen
Agricultural University in The Netherlands.  The exhibition is partially
supported by a grant from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts.

An illustrated catalogue with biographical data, portraits of the
artists, and reproductions of the artworks will be on sale at the
Institute.  Collectively, the catalogues from the earlier shows and the
present one contain the most comprehensive record available of
20th-century botanical artists and illustrators ~ the number of
individuals represented now totals over 650.  For those not represented,
the Institute seeks information regarding the work of botanical artists
and how we might contact them.

Selections from the exhibition will be included in a travel show that
will be circulated to museums, schools, botanic gardens and other
institutions.

The Hunt Institute for Botanical Documentation is a research division of
Carnegie Mellon University.  Founded by Mrs. Roy Hunt in 1960, the
Institute was created to be a living resource ~ curated actively and
used productively in the service of science and scholarship.  Now a
major research facility in the field of botanical art and illustration,
the Institute receives reference queries from botanists, artists and
scholars.

The exhibition is free to the public and will be on display on the 5th
floor of the Hunt Library from 9:00 a.m. to noon and 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.,
Monday through Friday.  For further information, contact the Institute
at (412) 268-2434.