|
Picasso's work displayed in India
18/12/2001 09:26 - (SA)
New Delhi - Indian President K.R. Narayanan inaugurated on Friday the first exhibition of more than 100 works by the celebrated 20th century artist Pablo Picasso to be held in India.
As many as 200 000 people are expected to view the three-month
exhibition of 122 paintings, drawings, engravings, sculptures and
ceramics of the Spanish master, which will be at the National
Museum in New Delhi from December 14 to January 31 before moving to Bombay until March 30.
"This is the biggest endeavour on our part to promote European
art in India," said Rajeev Lochan, the director of Bombay's
National Gallery of Modern Art.
"It's the first time that the works of an artist of such stature
are coming to us," Lochan said.
Special security measures were in place around the National
Museum in the Indian capital, which was still reeling from a
suicide attack on the Indian parliament on Thursday which left 12
people dead.
The Picassos, from various French collections, have been brought
together under the title Metamorphoses 1900-1972 and trace
important stages in the artist's evolution, from the so-called
Blue period to his last works.
"Thirty years after his death, the great master is visiting the
East," French ambassador Bernard de Montferrand said at the
exhibition's opening.
"I am convinced that in the eyes of all of us, in the eyes of
all the children and visitors who will discover (Picasso's works)
with amazement, a new metamorphosis will take place," he said.
Condemning the assault on parliament, De Montferrand said:
"Today when we are confronted with so many dangers, when
unacceptable and murderous attacks are led against democracy, the
fact that we are together, here in the National Museum, confident
in the power of art and of culture, is for me a remarkable act of
faith in the values of humanism."
The ambassador said the Picasso collection, drawn from several
French museums, would be followed in 2003 by an exhibition in Paris of art from India's Gupta period (319 AD to 510). - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA
|
South Africa
