Barjeel Art Foundation, Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation collaborate for India show

Barjeel Art Foundation, Sharjah, Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF) and Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya (CSMVS), Mumbai, have announced the hosting of Resonant Histories: India and the Arab World, a collaborative exhibition (Nov. 14 – Feb. 15) that traces the vibrant artistic and cultural dialogues between India and the Arab world across the twentieth century.

Curated by Puja Vaish and Suheyla Takesh, the exhibition will be on view at the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, CSMVS, Mumbai; the show foregrounds the shared aspirations, intellectual exchanges and creative synergies that shaped modern art across these regions. Resonant Histories presents artworks by pioneering modern artists from the collections of Barjeel Art Foundation and the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, which, being staged in dialogue, illuminate cross-cultural encounters that continue to shape artistic and intellectual discourse between the two regions even today.

The exhibition brings together seminal Arab artists who lived, trained, or exhibited in Indian cities or places such as New Delhi, Mumbai, and Shantiniketan. Their engagements — whether through participation in Triennale-India, training with Indian instructors, or shared association with the ideals of the Non-Aligned Movement — underscore the layered intersections of identity, colonial history, and modernity in their work, besides being living witnesses to the growth and development of cultural ties between the Arab and Indian worlds.

Egyptian artist Ali Hassan’s untitled work.

The show features works by artists from Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates and India, presenting a varied constellation of voices and perspectives. Participating artists include (in alphabetical order by first name), from the Barjeel Art Foundation: Abdul Qader Al Rais, Ahmad Nasha’at Al Zuaby, Ali Hassan, Dia al-Azzawi, Fateh Al-Moudarres, Hashim Samarchi, Hedi Turki, Ibrahim Ismail, Inji Efflatoun, Jafar Islah, Khazaal Awad Qaffas, Layla Al Attar, Mahmoud Hammad, Mariam Abdel-Aleem, Marwan Kassab-Bachi, Menhat Helmy, Mohammed Al Mazrouei, Mohammed Kazem, Munira Al-Kazi, Naim Ismail, Najat Makki, Nazek Hamdi, Nouri Al Rawi, Nuha Al-Radi, Rafa Al Nasiri, Saadi Al-Kaabi, Said Mohammed Radhi, Said Tahsin, Sami Mohammed, Seta Manoukian, Shakir Hassan Al Said, Suad Al Attar and Zaha Hadid.

Artists from the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation are Akbar Padamsee, Altaf Mohamedi, Arpita Singh, Bhupen Khakhar, Chittaprosad Bhattacharya, Francis Newton Souza, Ganesh Pyne, Ghulam Rasool Santosh, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Hari Ambadas Gade, Jamini Roy, Kalpathi Ganpathi Subramanyan, Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar, Krishen Khanna, Laxman Shreshtha, Maqbool Fida Husain, Meera Mukherjee, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Nalini Malani, Narayan Shridhar Bendre, Nasreen Mohamedi, Nilima Sheikh, Pakala Tirumal Reddy, Pilloo Pochkhanawala, Prabhakar Barwe, Ram Kumar, Sayed Haider Raza, Sudhir Khastgir, Sudhir Patwardhan, Tyeb Mehta, Vasudeo Santu Gaitonde and Vivan Sundaram.

Egyptian artist Nazek Hamdi’s The Lotus Flower (The Lotus Girl).

Resonant Histories aims to serve as a node in the broader research on modern histories in India and the Arab world, offering avenues for further scholarship, and inviting researchers to build on the questions raised by the objets d’art on display. By calling attention to ties in a cultural milieu, the exhibition encourages a deeper understanding of the interconnected socio-political histories and shared experiences that continue to resonate in the art and life of both regions. An illustrated catalogue accompanying the exhibition will be released in early 2026, providing a further resource for researchers, students and art enthusiasts, who would like to explore the subject further. Suheyla Takesh is a curator and writer. At the Barjeel Art Foundation, she works on research and curatorial development of exhibitions, and oversees the production of publications.

An exhibition she curated at the Aga Khan Museum in 2015 titled Home Ground, was named Toronto’s top art show of the year by NOW Toronto. Her writing has appeared in peer reviewed journals, including Thresholds and the Rutgers Art Review. Suheyla holds a Master’s degree (SMArchS) from MIT’s department of History, Theory and Criticism of Architecture and Art, where she was a student in the Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture. She is the co-curator of Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s (2020) at the Grey Art Gallery in New York.

Puja Vaish is Director at the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, CSMVS Museum, Mumbai. Previously, she was curator at the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Museum and lecturer at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda, Delhi College of Art and the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi institute of Architecture. Puja completed her Bachelors and Masters at Faculty of Fine Arts, Baroda. Barjeel Art Foundation is an independent, UAE-based initiative established to manage, preserve and exhibit an extensive collection of Modern and Contemporary Arab Art. The Foundation’s guiding principle is to contribute to the intellectual development of the art scene in the Arab region by building a prominent, publicly accessible art collection in the UAE.

Head by Indian artist K. G. Subramanyan.

By hosting in-house exhibitions, lending artwork to international forums, producing print and online publications and fashioning interactive public programmes, the Foundation strives to serve as an informative resource for contemporary art by Arab artists, both locally and on the global stage. Alongside an informative database of artists and a prospering educational programme, the Foundation has established partnerships with arts and cultural institutions internationally.

Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation is a private, not-for-profit organisation located in Mumbai, India, with its core interest in promoting the preservation, exhibition, education and research of post-colonial Indian modern art. The collection is endowed by the personal collection of the late Jehangir Nicholson, comprising over 800 pieces of art across mediums from artists including M. F. Husain, Vasudeo S. Gaitonde, S. H. Raza and K. H. Ara. The Foundation is currently housed at CSMVS, functioning as the modern and contemporary wing of the museum.