A note about the art collection at IBAB

Many years ago, IBAB was gifted a couple of original paintings. When we put them up we realized what a difference they made to the ambience. Most of the walls looked so bare when compared to the ones that had those paintings. So, we decided to acquire more pieces of art.

However artwork is extremely expensive, and we could not afford to purchase originals. Thereafter we started ‘Mission Affordable Art’. Over time, we visited various galleries in Bangalore, Delhi and Mumbai, primarily the National Gallery of Modern Art (New Delhi and Bengaluru), the Lalit Kala Academy (New Delhi), Kala Ghoda (Mumbai), Gallery Sumukha (Bengaluru) and the Vadhera Art Gallery (New Delhi), and bought their inexpensive prints.

Many of the prints are produced as folios of 6–10 pieces, and we created ‘corners’ of different artists, such as of the work of Amrita Sher-Gil, Jamini Roy, Paramjit Singh, Raja Ravi Verma, Ramkinker Baij, S H Raza, or a particular theme such as that of the Bagh murals or photographs of wildlife. Other walls hold collections of single pieces, such as those by Arpana Caur, Jehangir Sabavala, K G Subramanyam, K K Hebbar, Rabindranath Tagore, Somnath Hore, Sunil Das, Tyeb Mehta, V S Gaitonde, and Yusuf Arakkal. In some cases we have created unique collages using the artwork from calendars or books that had stunning photographs. The artwork is distributed over most of the buildings on campus.

Today IBAB has several hundred pieces of art. Although most are prints, a few are originals, donated by well wishers. We hope that the members of the IBAB community, and visitors, enjoy the displays. Also, students, research trainees, staff and faculty at IBAB come from various parts of the country, and we hope that the art, perhaps from their state, makes them feel at home.