Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company

The Wallace Collection

An exhibition that features the Indian master painters originally commissioned by officials from the East India Company in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

Exhibition Design, Gallery Design, Graphic Design, Interpretation, Selected

Forgotten Masters: Indian Painting for the East India Company at the Wallace Collection is the first UK exhibition of works by Indian master painters originally commissioned by officials from the East India Company in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The exhibition represents an unprecedented opportunity to see these vivid and highly original paintings together for the first time, recognising them as among the greatest masterpieces of Indian painting.

The artists behind the stunning natural studies of flora and fauna and portraits of people and places were never credited at the time of commission and the exhibition sets out to right that wrong by restoring proper authorship. The dazzling and often surprising artworks offer a rare glimpse of the cultural fusion between British and Indian artistic styles during the period.

Our approach to the exhibition design was to explore different ways of siting the artworks against a bright colour on long colourful vistas, picking up on the colours within the artworks and enabling them to resonate further. We also created dynamic physical thresholds between sections through new wall structures and the creation of room sets, with the use of colour indicating a change in focus or period.

Client

The Wallace Collection

Location

London

Gareth Gardner