In this beautifully illustrated study, Tryna Lyons combines ethnographic and art historical methods to examine the work and careers of artists in Nathadwara, Rajasthan, India. The religious pilgrimage centre of Nathadwara is home to a large community of traditional artists, who retain sketchbooks and other materials handed down in their families for generations. The old sketchbooks, still used to teach younger generations and to provide established artists with ideas, reveal the connection between contemporary practice and the historical antecedents of the Nathadwara School of painting. Lyons's innovative approach focuses on analysis of the sketchbooks of five artists active in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, reproduced here in detail alongside full-color reproductions of their work and related images. The sketchbooks reveal personal style and innovation, demonstrating the array of choices open to artists in a time of cultural ferment and excitement. A section on women artists documents the careers of successful female exponents of the Nathadwara style. Appendixes include a glossary and a collection of artists' genealogies, some stretching back 17 generations, recording significant information on artistic activities, commissions, and patronage. "The Artists of Nathadwara" should make us question Orientalist assumptions about tradition and the anonymity of South Asian artisans.

Table of Contents

Introduction: At Home with Shri Nathji; Home and the World: Mural Paintings by Nathadwara Artists; "By Omkarlal and Friends": The Cooperative Workshop in Turn-of-the-Century Nathadwara; Champalal's Sketchbook: A Glimpse of the Temple in Old Bombay; Narayan and His Descendants: Family as Framework for the Evolution of Style; Ghasiram's Sketchbooks: An Artist's Eye to the Future; England-Returned Master Kundanlal; The Women Artists of Nathadwara; Family Matters; Conclusion

Prizes

A richly illustrated look at the lives and careers of North Indian artists

Reviews

"Though this book is a delight to look through, and the text pleasantly light and welcoming to both scholar and general reader, there are important issues working under the surface of The Artists of Nathadwara: the face-off between folk art and traditional high culture; the presence in the artists' self-image of an imposed European aesthetic; artistic integrity and individualism within a system of religious patronage. Lyons does not so much evade these issues as nod gracefully to acknowledge them, then return to her exposition of the artists and the objects they produced." --Diane Johnson, Western Washington University, JRNL AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY ANE, Oct.-Dec. 2007--Diane Johnson, Western Washington University"JRNL AMERICAN ORIENTAL SOCIETY ANE" (01/01/2007)