Shared Lives, Distinct Visions

Shared Lives, Distinct Visions: Artist Couples in India is a major gallery exhibition on view in The Taj Mahal Palace, Mumbai. Challenging the idea of artistic practice as a solitary pursuit, the exhibition explores how companionship, dialogue, and shared life choices shaped the practices of artist couples whose creative journeys unfolded side by side. Distinct in visual language yet intertwined in lived experience, the exhibition reveals how intimacy and mutual regard became sustaining forces within parallel artistic paths.

The exhibition brings together works by some of modern and contemporary India’s most significant artists, including Madhvi and Manu Parekh, Arpita and Paramjit Singh, Devayani and Kanwal Krishna, Gulammohammed and Nilima Sheikh, Reba and Somnath Hore, Jyotsna and Jyoti Bhatt, among others. Across painting, sculpture, and mixed media, the artists demonstrate how partnership functioned as a quiet catalyst encouraging experimentation, offering critique, and deepening artistic understanding while each continued to forge an independent and distinctive vision.

Presented by DAG (Mumbai), one of India’s leading art institutions, the exhibition draws from its extensive collections spanning the eighteenth century to the present. Established in 1993, DAG has played a pivotal role in preserving, documenting, and promoting Indian art through landmark exhibitions, acquisitions of artists’ studios and estates, and international collaborations.

Curated by Veeranganakumari Solanki, the exhibition reflects DAG’s commitment to shaping the Indian art landscape through landmark exhibitions, rigorous curatorial research, scholarly publications, and collaborations with museums and cultural institutions in India and abroad. Through its dedication to preserving legacies, restoring marginalized narratives, and fostering public engagement with Indian art, DAG continues to redefine how India’s artistic heritage is studied, experienced, and celebrated.