front cover of In the Shadow of Yalta
In the Shadow of Yalta
Art and the Avant-garde in Eastern Europe, 1945-1989
Piotr Piotrowski
Reaktion Books, 2011

In this comprehensive study of the artistic culture of the region between the Iron Curtain and the former Soviet Union, Piotr Piotrowski chronicles the relationship between avant-garde art production and post–World War II politics in such Iron Curtain nations as Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and the former Yugoslavia. Featuring more than two hundred images, most by artists largely unfamiliar to an English-speaking audience, In the Shadow of Yalta is a fascinating portrait of the inspiring art made in a region—and at a time—of critical importance in modern Europe.

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front cover of The Triumph of Modernism
The Triumph of Modernism
India's Artists and the Avant-garde, 1922-47
Partha Mitter
Reaktion Books, 2007

          The tumultuous last decades of British colonialism in India were catalyzed by more than the work of Mahatma Gandhi and violent conflicts. The concurrent upheavals in Western art driven by the advent of modernism provided Indian artists in post-1920 India a powerful tool of colonial resistance. Distinguished art historian Partha Mitter now explores in this brilliantly illustrated study this lesser known facet of Indian art and history.

          Taking the 1922 Bauhaus exhibition in Calcutta as the debut of European modernism in India, The Triumph of Modernism probes the intricate interplay of Western modernism and Indian nationalism in the evolution of colonial-era Indian art. Mitter casts his gaze across a myriad of issues, including the emergence of a feminine voice in Indian art, the decline of “oriental art,” and the rise of naturalism and modernism in the 1920s. Nationalist politics also played a large role, from the struggle of artists in reconciling Indian nationalism with imperial patronage of the arts to the relationship between primitivism and modernism in Indian art.  An engagingly written study anchored by 150 lush reproductions, The Triumph of Modernism will be essential reading for scholars of art, British studies, and Indian history.

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