Art

A paradox revealed through portraiture

A photograph taken seven years before her passing says much about the life, times and character of the trailblazing Meherbai Tata The much-loved wife of Dorabji Tata and daughter in-law of Jamsetji Tata, the founder of the Tata group, Meherbai Tata was a woman of personality. A participant in the ornamental theatrics of being imperial within Empire, one finds her name regularly among the maharajas, nawabs and begums in royal chronicles. And deservedly so. Meherbai was honoured with the ‘Comm...
Tags: Art, London, Life, India, History, Heritage, Paris, Buckingham Palace, Victoria, Lafayette, Rembrandt, Mumbai, Queen Victoria, Tata, Reed, George V

Areez Katki: Bildungsroman at the Otago Museum

Otago Museum is thrilled to host Areez Katki’s acclaimed textile-based art exhibition, Bildungsroman, at the H D Skinner Annex opening on Saturday 11 January. The embroidered works explore Katki’s two, often conflicting, identities. Katki is a Parsi, an ethnoreligious group originally from Iran who fled to India during the first Muslim invasion between the 8th and 10th century. The Parsis are an opaque and insular population, traditionally only marrying within their community and keeping cent...
Tags: Art, Life, India, Iran, West, New Zealand, Mumbai, Auckland, Australasia, Persia, Dunedin, Auckland New Zealand, Parsi, Otago Museum, Malcolm Smith Gallery, Art Collector

Rustom Siodia: A Forgotten Master

Art in India has largely been a niche world, with few artists being known beyond the rather small circle of connoisseurs. But even within this small world, some brilliant artists and their work have been forgotten or lost with the passage of time. One of them is Rustom Siodia. Article by Anshika Jain | Live History India Siodia, who is little-known, was a brilliant Indian artist, who lived at the dawn of the 20th century. This was a a time when the art scene in the country was rapidly evolvin...
Tags: Art, London, Life, India, United States, Dallas, Columbia University, Royal Opera House, Mumbai, New Delhi, Bombay, Suez Canal, Persia, Harun, South Mumbai, Rashtrapati Bhavan

700 Years of Persian Manuscripts Now Digitized and Available Online

Too often those in power lump thousands of years of Middle Eastern religion and culture into monolithic entities to be feared or persecuted. But at least one government institution is doing exactly the opposite. For Nowruz, the Persian New Year, the Library of Congress has released a digital collection of its rare Persian-language manuscripts, an archive spanning 700 years. This free resource opens windows on diverse religious, national, linguistic, and cultural traditions, most, but not all, I...
Tags: Google, Art, Europe, Books, Congress, College, India, Poetry, Religion, Iran, Literature, North America, Archives, British Library, Tajikistan, Atlas Obscura

Persian Manuscripts Spanning 700 Years, Now Digitized and Available Online

Too often those in power lump thousands of years of Middle Eastern religion and culture into monolithic entities to be feared or persecuted. But at least one government institution is doing exactly the opposite. For Nowruz, the Persian New Year, the Library of Congress has released a digital collection of its rare Persian-language manuscripts, an archive spanning 700 years. This free resource opens windows on diverse religious, national, linguistic, and cultural traditions, most, but not all, I...
Tags: Google, Art, Europe, Books, Congress, College, India, Poetry, Religion, Iran, Literature, North America, Archives, British Library, Tajikistan, Atlas Obscura

Jimmy Engineer: “The servant of Pakistan”

Jimmy described his wall paintings depicting Allama Iqbal’s masterpiece Javed Namah as his most difficult work, but also one of his major artistic achievements “I have been sent here,” said an unfamiliar man, in a dark shalwar kameez, as he stood silhouetted in the doorway of my Karachi hotel room. It was late in the evening and he had insisted on seeing me personally and alone, an unnerving demand in 1997, when the filming had just started on my film Jinnah. There was a storm of controversy and...
Tags: Art, Europe, Washington, Life, China, Beijing, United States, Pakistan, Washington Dc, God, Houston, Sri Lanka, American University, LAHORE, KARACHI, Persia

Gemma Arterton webchat – post your questions now

The British actor, currently starring in Nell Gwynn in the West End, will answer your questions in a live webchat from 1pm GMT on Tuesday 22 March. Post them in the comments below 10.50am GMT With breakthrough parts in blockbusters like Prince of Persia and Casino Royale, Gemma Arterton once seemed to have a steely gaze on Hollywood action – but has instead dived into deeper dramatic roles.As well as playing conflicted women in the Posy Simmonds film adaptations Gemma Bovery and Tamara Drewe...
Tags: Hollywood, Film, Theatre, Culture, Stage, West End, Gemma Arterton, Dagenham, Persia, Marjane Satrapi, Nell Gwynn, Tamara Drewe, Royale Gemma Arterton, Gemma Bovery

A peek into Parsi life

Three exhibitions will present a narrative of the community’s cultural ethos and the spread of Zoroastrianism Article byPooja Singh | Live Mint A portrait of 17th century Parsi trader Rustom Seth.   Be Responsible. Don’t Use A Condom Tonight. At a time when the world was, and still is, looking for ways to promote safe sex, there appeared an advert proclaiming, “Let there be nothing between your togetherness”. That campaign, an initiative under a Union government-supported s...
Tags: Art, UK, China, India, Iran, Unesco, Union, Delhi, Persia, National Museum, Syria Iran, Parsi, Indira Gandhi National Centre, Homi Bhabha, Parzor Foundation, National Gallery of Modern Art NGMA