New Delhi, Feb. 12 -- In J. Sultan Ali's Milkmaid, you can see a vibrant folk idiom come together with the cubist style. A new exhibition at DAG, Deconstructed Realms: India's Tryst with Cubism, features over a hundred such works by 40 artists, including Gaganendranath Tagore, Nandalal Bose, George Keyt and Biren De who innovated with this largely Western construct in an Indian context in the 20th century. It's interesting to see how the art movement made its way from Europe to India, planting its roots first in Bengal, with Gaganendranath Tagore being at the forefront of this journey.

According to Ashish Anand, CEO and managing director, DAG, it all started when artists from Bengal experienced the Bauhaus exhibition in Kolkata in 1922, ...