Shuvaprasanna with others

Shuvaprasanna is a complete people person and it is a delight to see his enthusiasm and joie de vivre. He suggested that all his galleries should work together as one to make the retrospective and publication even more special. Without any delay he called up Kalpana Shah, Richa Agarwal and Vijay Lakshmi Dogra, each of whom was equally enthusiastic and driven by his fervour, and a shape started emerging. Pramod Kapoor of Roli Books has perhaps been the greatest driving force in the project, we are lucky to have him and Priya Kapoor on board with us. Once a basic idea and direction were in place, we met with curator writer Sushma Bahl, who made a valuable suggestion stressing the need for substantial content that would correspond to the conceptual context of the retrospective and would find adequate reflection in the book as well. She related how, in the course of her travels, she had discovered that the reason our art books are not included by libraries abroad is the general perception that our coffee table publications, though high on picture and print quality, were lacking in research, substance and the multivocality of perspectives that should typify all such textual representation. Based on this input, it was decided to bring together reputed scholars and writers whose contributions would make it a seminal book and a collectors delight.



As such, we were fortunate to be able to get on board everyone who has contributed to this book. Distinguished art historian Prof. B.N. Goswamy, art critic and historian Seema Bawa, art curator and writer Ina Puri, well known critic Manasij Majumdar, eminent German collector, Ralf Oestreich and curator and writer Sushma Bahl. Each essay forms an important part of a cohesive whole focusing on a particular aspect of Shuva Da artistic genre and taken together they create a historio-cultural context in contemporary Indian art. All of us, the individuals and galleries that have been associated in this process of bringing this book to fruition from an idea to a tangible presence, over a journey driven by passion, interest and belief hold it close to our hearts as a testimony to a man we all admire, as a validation of art and artistic integrity, and as a celebration of creative collaboration. We hope the richness of Black Brown & the Blue that has touched our lives, spills over from its pages into yours as well.