Since its inception in 1986, the Vadehra Art Gallery (VAG) has promoted contemporary Indian art through exhibitions, retrospectives, publications and educational programmes. Over the last 20 years, the Gallery has become the locus through which both modern and contemporary artists have reached the public. VAG’s position as an artistic interlocutor with the public is especially vital in contemporary India because of the lack of vibrant art museum culture.
Starting in the 1990s, VAG paved the way for an active collaboration between private and public art sectors. In the mid-1990s, the gallery organized retrospectives with the government-run National Gallery of Modern Art of senior artists Ram Kumar, Raghu Rai, Devyani Krishna, A Ramachandran and SH Raza. In recent years, works from our collection and exhibitions of Atul Dodiya, Arpita Singh, Ravinder Reddy and A Ramachandran have been loaned to Kunstmuseum, Bern; the Chicago Cultural Centre; the Women’s Studies Research Centre, Brandies University; Jardin d’Acclimatation; Singapore Art Museum; and, Mori Art Museum, Japan, among others.
Our international recognition was further solidified by the 2006 collaboration with the Grosvenor (now the Grosvenor Vadehra) Gallery in London on the first ever Pablo Picasso exhibition held in a private gallery in India. After receiving an unprecedented response from art collectors, the general public and the press, the show solidified the notion that India was a viable destination for the international art world. Our new gallery in London, Grosvenor Vadehra, opened in 2006 with three inaugural exhibitions of Indian art – The Moderns Revisited, Inverting/Inventing Traditions and Here and Now: Young Voices from India. In 2007, we held a highly acclaimed exhibition of Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon along with Tyeb Mehta and FN Souza in Delhi.
VAG has also taken on the role of community organizing through The Foundation for Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), which was launched in 2006 to support artists and educational activities in the visual arts, benefiting both emerging and established artists, art historians, curators, art critics, and other professionals devoted to the study of contemporary Indian art. With the initial support of Vadehra Art Gallery, FICA intends to be a self-sustaining, not-for-profit entity with annual programs including public art grants and fellowships for visual artists and writers.
In 1996, VAG became the first gallery to systematically publish writing on art. We have published twelve books so far that range from monographs on artists, to books on art making technique, to picture books and finally a comprehensive art directory. Done in close collaboration with the artists, these publications are vital historical documents.
August 2008 saw the opening of the Vadehra Art Gallery Book|Store, the first-of-its-kind in India, which combines a reading room/library space by FICA and a bookstore. The FICA Reading Room gives students, collectors and enthusiasts a chance to reference at their leisure a plethora of Indian and international art books, journals, magazines and films. In addition to Indian and foreign books and catalogues on art, the bookstore offers a wide variety of Indian art inspired collectibles and home accessories as well as limited edition artist-signed prints.
In July 2009, VAG opened its fifth space at DLF Emporio, an exclusive high-end retail destination in Delhi. Adding to the three galleries in Defence Colony and Okhla in New Delhi, and Ryder Street in London, and the Bookstore & Reading Room in Defence Colony, this fifth space functions both as a contemporary art gallery with an active exhibition schedule as well as an exclusive store selling art books, products and accessories.