Special Project Space | 19th Century Paintings Gallery

Presented by the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum in collaboration with Chatterjee and Lal, Family Resemblances: Sir J.J. School and the Search for a Modern Indian Idiom is curated by Mortimer Chatterjee and Tasneem Zakaria Mehta. Through the lives and work of three members of one family - Rustom Siodia, his daughter Cumi Dallas, and her husband Homi Dallas - the exhibition examines three distinct formulations of a modern Indian idiom in art and architecture. Each was connected to the Sir J.J. institutions, and each responded differently to the idea of the modern during a period shaped by the last decades of colonial rule and its aftermath.

Considered together, their careers reveal the Sir J.J. School of Art as a site where divergent ideas about Indian modernity were brought to the fore. The histories of the School and the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum are closely intertwined. For a period in the early histories of both institutions, the curator of the Museum was also the Principal of the School. Today, the Museum remains the custodian of objects made by students and alumni of the Sir J.J. School of Art, including works by Rustom Siodia and many of his contemporaries.

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After training at J.J., Rustom Siodia (1881–1946) became one of the earliest Indian students, and the first Parsi, to study at the Royal Academy in London. He subsequently established a career working principally through academic realism, the high point arriving with the 1929 murals for the Herbert Baker-designed Imperial Secretariat, as part of the ‘Lutyen’s Delhi’ development.

Cumi Dallas (1907–1973) developed her practice through the Bombay Revivalist tradition, drawing upon classical Indian cultural sources in addition to a grounding in academic realism. She sustained an active career after her marriage and became one of a relatively small number of women artists exhibiting during the mid-twentieth century.

Homi N. Dallas (1905–1993), trained in architecture at J.J., and pursued the question of Indian expression as both a teacher and a practitioner. He co-founded Parelkar & Dallas and was elected president of the Indian Institute of Architects on three occasions.

The family resemblance at the heart of the exhibition lies in their individual attempts to negotiate shared inheritance and cosmopolitan training in order to define modern Indian expression in the spheres of art and architecture.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Mortimer Chatterjee and Tasneem Mehta would like to acknowledge the help of the following people:
Heirs of Rustom Siodia, Heirs of Cumi Dallas, Heirs of Homi N Dallas
Mustansir Dalvi
The team at Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum
The team at Chatterjee & Lal