“20th Century Indian Art is an essential guide for anyone interested in modern art in South Asia. The essays are carefully researched, thoughtfully organized and well-illustrated with an abundance of important insights and information that make reading this book a pleasure.”
— Glenn D. Lowry, The David Rockefeller Director at MoMA
“A pioneering work of art-historical scholarship illuminated by revisionary contemporary critical and cultural frameworks … a landmark cosmopolitan contribution to the profound spirit of intellectual inquiry and aesthetic hospitality that have, through the centuries, inspired the arts of India.”
— Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities,
“This wide-ranging, 750-page monument to the last century of art across South Asia puts its many movements and artists into authoritative context.”
— The New York Times Book Review
“Indian art has found an immensely impressive range of historians and commentators, and a global context, in this enormous, significant scholarly landmark. Micro stories and the big picture, peripheries and the center, colonial and postcolonial assumptions, modernism’s freedoms and constraints: every tightrope is walked with balance and insight.”
— Financial Times
“At long last, Indian art from the long 20th century gets the forensic treatment.”
— The Art Newspaper
“An expansive and scholarly work [that] explores the many artists, ideas, philosophies and the often turbulent social and political upheavals that have fed into 100 years of art in India.”
— Hettie Judah, Art Quarterly
“A landmark publication … It would make an important addition to the shelves of any art lover’s personal library.”
— Art Society Review
“Sumptuously produced … [an] essential critical compendium.”
— India Today
“A must read for art students, scholars, collectors, and enthusiasts alike. Some of the most interesting chapters are on figures who have slipped out of the pages of mainstream art history.”
— MintLounge
“A sea of riches … an irreplaceable resource … The more one tries to lasso the book and pull it closer for a comprehensive comment, the more it slips away into nooks and crannies of Indian art-making that are riveting. [Ultimately] it drives home the task it surely set itself: to entice, to reveal, to mystify, to clarify, to tantalize, to confuse, to provoke, to pacify, to anger, even, as much to delight … enacting the range of the art it captures, in as many compelling ways.”
— The Telegraph India
“For range and depth, a landmark in Indian art history. It pulls the marginal towards the centre yet keeps the big picture in view, rethinks modernism’s freedoms, and troubles in a broadened global context and negotiates colonial and postcolonial assumptions with nuanced understanding.”
— Financial Times
“My vote for the most important book of the year goes to 20th Century Indian Art by Partha Mitter, Parul Dave Mukherji, and Rakhee Balaram. Beautifully produced and encyclopaedic, it provides expert insights on everything from street photography and installations to Regional Modern and Dalit art, and art and activism. It also includes sections on art from the diaspora and from other South Asian countries.”
— Manjula Narayan, Hindustan Times
“Brilliantly innovative.”
— David Carrier The Brooklyn Rail
“[An] innovative reevaluation… Brilliantly conceived and handsomely designed, Karmel's fluent and creative history redefines abstraction in terms of its vibrant and evocative range of styles, subjects, and expression.”
— Booklist
“Abstraction is just as relevant and important today as it was [in the past]… Karmel argues for its durability and broadens its cast by spotlighting earlier figures who have been overlooked and others who are carrying abstraction into the future.”
— ARTnews
“Big, beautiful, [and] brimming with scholarship and insight, [Pepe Karmel's] survey is a network of linked fragments, a rhizome, a Wunderkammer—in short, a book for our times.”
— Art in America
“Sleepy children won't make it until the end of this well-conceived and sharply designed alphabet… Angular, screenprintlike graphics in zingy reds, yellows, and blues aren't exactly sleepy, but poring over the details may still quiet some young minds.”
— Publishers Weekly
“This anything-but-boring read will delight little ones and will have them yawning in no time as they practice sounds and letters. The meditative, poetic nature of the text pairs perfectly with the minimalistic, graphical, yet bright and captivating visual elements. Early literacy advocates and children alike will dream sweetly after enjoying this interactive book as a group or as a one-on-one night-time story… Offers proof that getting to sleep doesn't have to be dull.”
— School Library Journal