Online Talk
Revisiting Midnight’s Moderns
Dr Zehra Jumabhoy
At the stroke of midnight in 1947, while the world slumbered, India emerged to “life and freedom”, according to its first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. At the dawn of the nation-state, and imbued with Nehru’s secular-syncretic aspirations, the Progressive Artists’ Group was formed in ‘Bombay’. Often considered India’s most high-profile Moderns, and celebrated (or castigated) as such, the PAG continues to haunt the Indian imagination – and dominate its art auctions.
But, why this continuing obsession with these early figures of India’s awakening? Moreover, how helpful is the PAG’s aesthetic vision today? This talk re-visits the PAG – including its second ‘wave’ of members (e.g Krishen Khanna) and close associates (e.g. Tyeb Mehta and Ram Kumar) in the context of recent exhibitions. Are we asking the right questions of the Indian Moderns?
This programme is in conjunction with Shape of a Thought: Letters from Ram Kumar.
Dr Zehra Jumabhoy
Dr Zehra Jumabhoy is a Lecturer in the History of Art at the University of Bristol, UK. She has been awarded the inaugural Berger Trust Future Leaders Fellowship in the History of British Art 2025/2026 (launched by Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge, and The Huntington, California). She was the Steven and Elena Heinz Scholar at the Courtauld Institute of Art, London, where she completed her doctorate, and lectured on undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. In 2018, Zehra co-curated the landmark exhibition, The Progressive Revolution: A Modern Art for a New India, at New York’s Asia Society Museum. In November 2025, she is co-curating, with Kajoli Khanna, the major retrospective Krishen Khanna at 100: The Last Progressive at the NGMA, Mumbai.
