“Exciting a Wider Interest in the Art of India”The 1931 Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition (original) (raw)

This article focuses on the largely understudied Art of India exhibition held at the Burlington Fine Arts Club in London in 1931, which was hailed at the time as the first event of its kind in the West. Featuring over three hundred objects, including many major works of art from important collections, as well as the recently discovered objects from the Indus Valley Civilization, the BFAC exhibition has nevertheless featured at most as a footnote in accounts of Indian art and its exhibition histories. Recuperating this early exhibitionary attempt at an historical survey of Indian art through archival material, its catalogue, and contemporary coverage reveals the exhibition's entanglements with art-historical and cultural concerns of the day, and its more enduring impact on narratives and debates about the contours of an emerging canon for Indian art. This article is accompanied by two downloadable resources: a complete copy of the Art of India catalogue (Fig. 1), and a PDF compiled by the author that attempts to visually reassemble the exhibition through images of works in the (originally unillustrated) catalogue (Fig. 2).