‘Once Upon a Time in Bombay’: An exhibition that is a love letter to the city

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. A series of paintings on showcase at DAG, Mumbai, showcase Bombay’s transformation from a colonial centre and a major port into the megapolis that we know as Mumbai today. Titled ‘Once Upon a Time in Bombay’, the exhibition, which opened as part of the Mumbai Gallery Weekend, chronicles the city’s evolving landscapes through the 19th and 20th centuries.

There is an evocative painting by L.N. Taskar, which showcases women in traditional attire at a temple. Another one by S.G.

Thakar Singh shows the beaches of the city as they once were—clean, devoid of the crowd of humanity that is the norm now, bathed in evening light with fishing boats bobbing in the sea, and a group of fisherfolk watching on. In a canvas by Austrian artist Walter Langhammer—also an influential member of the Bombay Art Society committee— canvas, bustling streetscapes come to life. Ashish Anand terms this show as a love letter to the city—one that looks at some of the key facets of the city, from its natural landscapes, a mix of colonial and traditional Indian architecture, and the people, who infuse life into it.

“The exhibition evokes a sense of nostalgia, of a city as it was painted by Indian and Western artists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, to which we can time-travel through these enthralling works," he adds. The city has served as a fertile ground for art and culture both pre and post-Independence. It has served as a backdrop to the rise of modernism and for the establishment of art institutions.