Beyond the Page: South Asian Miniatures and Britain, 1600 to Now

A richly illustrated exploration of the impact of South Asian Miniature painting on contemporary art.

This book tells the dynamic story of contemporary art’s engagement with the miniature painting traditions of South Asia from the sixteenth century onwards, and the role of Britain in these developments.

This is the first publication to address this remarkable painting tradition on a transhistorical and transnational scale. Readers are invited to admire the formal, technical and conceptual innovations of some of the most exciting historic and contemporary artists from South Asia, while reflecting on questions of culture and power in the entangled histories of empire and globalization.

Many of the greatest collections of South Asian paintings are held in Britain, and some of the pivotal encounters that shaped this story happened in London. The process of these acquisitions and their central role within British and South Asian art histories are explored in this book. The book also demonstrates how the traditions of South Asian miniature painting have been reclaimed and reinvented by modern and contemporary artists, exploding beyond the pages of illuminated manuscripts to experimental forms that include installation, sculpture and film. While miniature painting represented a strand of cultural resistance to colonial rule in the early twentieth century, artists continue to find contemporary relevance in the possibilities offered by this tradition.

Beyond the Page is richly illustrated with historic works from the Victoria & Albert Museum, the British Library, the British Museum, the Ashmolean, the Bodleian Library and the Royal Collection Trust. It also features work by artists from different generations working in dialogue with the miniature tradition, including Hamra Abbas, David Alesworth, Nandalal Bose, Noor Ali Chagani, Lubna Chowdhary, Adbur Rahman Chughtai, Samuel Fyzee-Rahamin, N.S. Harsha, Howard Hodgkin, Ali Kazim, Bhupen Khakhar, Jess MacNeil, Imran Qureshi, Nusra Latif Qureshi, Mohan Samant, Nilima Sheikh, Willem Schellinks, the Singh Twins, Shahzia Sikander and Abanindranath Tagore.

Anthony Spira is Director of MK Gallery, having been curator at the Whitechapel Gallery, London and the Jeu de Paume, Paris. He has produced many publications on artists including Ellen Altfest, Hans Bellmer, Peter Dreher, Ingrid Pollard and George Stubbs.

Fay Blanchard is Head of Exhibitions at MK Gallery. Prior to joining the gallery she worked as Visual Arts Curator with the British Council. She has produced publications on contemporary British sculpture and artists including Paula Rego, Laura Knight and Boyd & Evans.

Including essays by Emily Hannam and Hammad Nasar, with catalogue entries from Emily Hannam and Hammad Nasar, together with Cleo Roberts-Komireddi and Elizabeth Brown.