MUMBAI, India, Dec. 8, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — As Deutsche Bank celebrates 150 years in Asia Pacific and over four decades in India, it hosted its flagship art event on 02 Dec 2022. Attended by India’s top business and corporate leaders, the evening was hosted by Deutsche Bank Group India CEO Kaushik Shaparia, in the presence of management board member and Deutsche Bank APAC CEO, Alexander von zur Muehlen. It was held in an open-air gallery especially created for the evening in the courtyard of the magnificent white neo-Baroque Deutsche Bank House in the heritage Fort precinct of Mumbai. The show saw a specially curated exhibition titled ‘Journey of the Masters’ by noted art institution DAG and an unprecedented Jugalbandi of art and music. The guests also enjoyed the Deutsche Bank art collection displayed in the premises.
One of a kind jugalbandi
The highlight of the evening was a one-of-a-kind jugalbandi between two very different artists with mastery of different strokes – one with the paintbrush and the other on the tabla. In the unique duet of art and music, Paresh Maity, one of India’s most admired and celebrated contemporary artists, painted live on stage, accompanied by Swarupa Ananth-Sawkar, a young Indian percussionist on the tabla. Swarupa has been a disciple of Ustad Allarakha & Ustad Zakir Hussain, musical collaborator of A.R. Rahman, prolific artist and music producer in her own right named to the Forbes India 30 under 30 list.
Live, in front of the audience, Paresh Maity completed his painting featuring diyas on the ghats of Banaras, created specially to celebrate the bank’s presence in India & Asia Pacific. Swarupa accompanied his craft with her own, matching him stroke for stroke and building to a crescendo as the painting neared completion. A unique juxtaposition of the arts.
The Padma Shri awardee, Paresh Maity has bridged the gap between his native Tamluk in Bengal and the art capitals of the world with his prodigious talent. From early success as a watercolourist whose landscapes were compared to Turner and Constable for their transparency and use of light, he has since mastered large canvases rich with colour, magnificent sculptures, and installations.
DAG showcases ‘Journey of the Masters’
This year, the well-known art institution, DAG was associated with the event as the exclusive art partner. Over the years, the bank has partnered with important art galleries and showcased uniquely curated art by Indian artists at its annual show in Mumbai.
DAG curated a special exhibition titled ‘Journey of the Masters’ that offered a glimpse of some of the finest art produced in India in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The journey from naturalism to modernism was highlighted by two works in the exhibition – a view of the ghats of Banaras painted by the Dutch orientalist Marius Bauer whose paintings of India have not been previously shown in the country. The other was a stunning portrait by F. N. Souza, founder of the Progressive Artists’ Group, easily the most global of India’s modernists who saw the flowering of his career in London and New York. The remaining works in the selection offered a crisp overview of these changes including early academic art, represented by still-lifes and landscapes, to different strands of figurative and abstract art by the most respected names in the country.
Deutsche Bank is well known as one of the most consequential global supporters of art and its locally focused India art collection, includes noteworthy and early works by important artists. Many of these works were on view in the halls of the Deutsche Bank House.
Kaushik Shaparia, Deutsche Bank Group, India CEO, said, “This is a tremendously significant and symbolic evening for us. Post an unprecedented period, we have gathered in good health and cheer, and what better medicine than a dose of fine art to remind us of the continuum and the beauty of life itself. Art has always been an important expression of our values and ideas, as a people, as a nation, and as a banking institution. I am delighted that India’s celebrated master Paresh Maity, along with Swarupa Ananth-Sawkar and DAG, produced this inimitable experience for our clients.”
