Includes bibliographical references (pages 299-319) and index.

Affiliation, worldliness, and modernism in India -- An art of the soil: Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941) -- Man and Mahabharata: Maqbool Fida Husain (1915-2011) -- The new primitives: K. G. Subramanyan (1924-) -- Paan shop for people: Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003) -- Globalization, the new-media nineties, and the persistence of modernism.

"Drawing on Edward Said's notion of 'affiliation' as a critical and cultural imperative against empire and nation-state, Worldly Affiliations traces the emergence of a national art world in twentieth-century India and emphasizes its cosmopolitan ambitions and orientations. Sonal Khullar focuses on four major Indian artists--Amrita Sher-Gil, Maqbool Fida Husain, K. G. Subramanyan, and Bhupen Khakhar--situating their careers within national and global histories of modernism and modernity. Through a close analysis of original artwork, archival materials, artists' writing, and period criticism, Khullar provides a vivid historical account of the state and stakes of artistic practice in India from the late colonial through postcolonial periods. She discusses the shifting terms of Indian artists' engagement with the West--an urgent yet fraught project in the wake of British colonialism--and to a lesser extent with African and Latin American cultural movements such as Négritude and Mexican muralism"--Provided by publisher.