The Bauhaus in Calcutta: An Encounter of the Cosmopolitan Avant-Garde

The Bauhaus in Calcutta: An Encounter of the Cosmopolitan Avant-Garde, 2013. Edited by Regina Bittner and Kathrin Rhomberg. Edition Bauhaus 36, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Germany. English edition, 6.5 x 9.5, pp. 212. Published on the occasion of The Bauhaus in Calcutta exhibition at Bauhaus Dessau from March 27–June 30, 2013.The Bauhaus exhibition in Calcutta in 1922 was a unique experience on the international art scene—a meeting of artistic and intellectual affinities. On a search for renewal after World War I, Western modernism encountered its Indian counterpart, which had emancipated itself from colonial constraints. At the Bauhaus’s first international show, works by Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Johannes Itten, and other Bauhaus artists were presented alongside those of modern Indian artists such as Nandalal Bose, Sunayani Devi, and Abanindranath and Gaganendranath Tagore. This publication gives an account how this unusual encounter came about and presents the exhibition as an exemplary