Artists Collective

Progressive Artists Group, Bombay

By 1947, restless stirrings among the artists in Bombay led to the formation of the Progressive Artists’ Group (PAG). The members who joined the group were Francis Newton Souza, Maqbool Fida Husain, Syed Haider Raza, Krishna Hawlaji Ara, Hari Amba Das Gade and S. Bakre, a sculptor. Besides these founder members others too inclined with the group in their choice of aesthetic values and approach to visual language. Engagement with pure form became their creed. The artists close to the PAG were Akbar Padamsee, Tyeb Mehta, Bal Chhabda, Vasudeo S Gaitonde, Ram Kumar and Krishna Khanna. The NGMA has several paintings by most of these artists representing significant phases of their artistic development. Other artists of this period to have stretched the idioms were Narayan Shridhar Bendre and Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar.