With reference to the report by Rana Siddiqui Zaman, headlined “India in Venice Biennale for the first time in 116 years,” published in The Hindu on April 14, 2011, Madanjeet Singh, UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador and former Indian diplomat, writes:
I was astonished to read the report [claiming that this is the first time India will be featured in the Venice Biennale]. This is clearly false information. Soon after I joined as cultural attaché at the Indian Embassy in Rome in 1952, I had organised the first ever exhibition of Indian art at the 1953 Biennale International Exhibition in Venice. The exhibits included 60 works of art by young artists such as Husain, Raza Gaitonde, Ram Kumar and others that I had personally collected in Calcutta, Madras, Bombay and Delhi.
I had also managed to get two paintings each of the veteran artists, Jamini Roy and Amrita Sher-Gill, overriding the opposition of the Director of the Museum of Modern Art in New Delhi, at the intervention of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. It was a resounding success as 44 works of art were sold despite intense competition from artists worldwide.
The exhibition was inaugurated by Ambassador B.R. Sen and visited by eminent personalities such as the art critic Sir Roland Adam and UNESCO Director-General Luther Evans.
The accompanying photograph shows, in addition to those mentioned in the caption, an official of the Indian Ministry of Education in New Delhi, whose name I forget.
May I request you to bring this to the attention of the readers of The Hindu ?
