The Art & Photography Foundation holds and manages a large and varied collection of art, photography, textiles and design, predominantly from the subcontinent. The Foundation's core collection has been a generous gift from the Poddar family in Bengaluru, whose family art collection, the Foundation further manages. Many of the works from this collection now form the nucleus of the Museum of Art & Photography’s Collection, and the Foundation holds them in trust for the benefit of the public, making them available through loans, access to researchers, and an ongoing digitisation project.
Dating from the 12th century to the present, this extensive collection, has been divided into six key departments for the purposes of practical archiving concerns: Modern & Contemporary, Photography, Folk & Tribal, Popular Art and Textiles, Craft and Design and Pre-Modern Art.
Pre-Modern Art
The Pre-Modern section of the collection holds some of the most canonical works of Indian art. Its key highlights include a selection of miniature paintings - with Mughal, Jain, Rajput and Pahari schools being represented, Chola bronzes, temple art from Southern India, as well as Mysore and Tanjore paintings. One of MAP’s most debated departments, it exemplifies the limitations of unidimensional categorisation and the need for broader crosscurrents by also holding later and popular works that speak of older traditions such as pichwais and paithan paintings.
Modern & Contemporary Art
The Modern & Contemporary holdings include a wide cross-section of art in India, in recent history. Tracing several styles and art movements, it is home to works by artists such as Jamini Roy, Bhupen Khakhar, Jyoti Bhatt, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Ravinder Reddy, Ravi Verma, Rabindranath Tagore, Abanindranath Tagore, Binod Behari Mukherjee, Ramkinkar Baij, M.F. Husain, J Swaminathan, V.S. Gaitonde, K.G. Subramanian, Atul Dodiya, Jitish Kallat, Mithu Sen, Riyas Komu and others.
Textiles, Crafts & Design
The Textile, Craft & Design section of the collection includes important examples of several textile traditions, aside from being home to a variety of decorative arts—such as furniture, design and jewellery—that demonstrate the exquisite skill and technical expertise of the artisans involved in these disciplines.
Folk & Tribal Art
The Folk & Tribal Art section of the collection displays a wide range of India’s regional communal artistic practices, including both well-recognised and relatively under-appreciated traditions. It further also holds contemporary rewokings of local forms.
Popular Art
The Popular Art section of the collection maps the development of the printing and advertising industries in India from the 19th century to the late 20th century, through a wide range of material including both commercial and non-commercial art.
Photography
Photography makes up one of the largest sections of the collection and features extensive holdings from the 19th century, 20th century modernist photography, as well as work by contemporary photographers working in India.