id: 293363 accession number: 2016.544 share license status: Copyrighted url: https://clevelandart.org/art/2016.544 updated: 2022-04-23 09:01:11.070000 Serpent Deity (Nag Devta I), 1979. Mrinalini Mukherjee (Indian, 1949-2015). Undyed and dyed hemp rope and fibers; cotton; steel; overall: 114.3 x 83.8 x 129.5 cm (45 x 33 x 51 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Gift of Phyllis Granoff 2016.544 © Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation title: Serpent Deity (Nag Devta I) title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1979 creation date earliest: 1979 creation date latest: 1979 current location: creditline: Gift of Phyllis Granoff copyright: © Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation --- culture: India technique: Undyed and dyed hemp rope and fibers; cotton; steel department: Indian and Southeast Asian Art collection: Indian Art type: Mixed Media find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Mrinalini Mukherjee (Indian, 1949-2015) - artist Indian sculptor. Her father was one of the major mid-century Indian modern artists who bridged the Bengal-Bombay-Baroda schools. His teacher, Nandalal Bose, was the subject of a major international exhibition that Sonya Quintanilla organized in 2007 about the rise of modern Indian art in connection with the nationalist and independence movements of the first half of the 20th century. These early nationalist artists of Bengal, who worked mainly at the utopian Art School of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, emphasized the reinvigoration of village art-making traditions that they saw as untouched by British colonialism. Mukherjee’s materials and techniques partake in this ideal. --- measurements: Overall: 114.3 x 83.8 x 129.5 cm (45 x 33 x 51 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Contemporary Gallery Reinstallation 2021 opening date: 2021-04-20T04:00:00 Contemporary Gallery Reinstallation 2021. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Mrinalini Mukherjee [1949-2015], New Delhi, India, to Phyllis Granoff date: 1979 footnotes: citations: Phyllis Granoff [b. 1947], New Haven, CT, given to the Cleveland Museum of Art date: 1979–2016 footnotes: citations: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH date: 2016– footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: Mrinalini Mukherjee often worked intuitively to create her hemp textile pieces, without sketches, models, or preparatory drawings. digital description: Mrinalini Mukherjee's array of organic abstract forms evokes human and animal bodies as well as vegetation. Mostly made of knotted hemp fiber, a material and technique traditionally used by village women in rural India, this contemporary sculpture references the serpent deities that have been revered in southern Asia for thousands of years. wall description: Mrinalini Mukherjee's array of organic abstract forms evokes human and animal bodies as well as vegetation. Mostly made of knotted hemp fiber, a material and technique traditionally used by village women in rural India, this contemporary sculpture references the serpent deities that have been revered in southern Asia for thousands of years. --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Mukherjee, Mrinalini, David Elliott, Gulam Mohammed Sheikh, Jagdish Swaminathan, and Chrissie Iles. Mrinalini Mukherjee: Sculpture. Oxford: Museum of Modern Art Oxford, 1994. page number: p. 12 url: Ella Datta, Art India, Vol. XI, Issue IV, Quarter IV, 2006, p. 214. page number: p. 214 url: Murtaza Vali, “Mrinalini Mukherjee, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi,” Artforum (Summer 2015), 349–50. page number: url: Mukherjee, Mrinalini, and Shanay Jhaveri. Mrinalini Mukherjee. Mumbai, India: The Shoestring Publisher, 2019. page number: url: "New Take on the New: A comprehensive reinstallation of the galleries of contemporary art offers fresh viewpoints on the art of our time.” Cleveland Art: Cleveland Museum of Art Members Magazine 61, no. 2 (Spring 2021): Cover, 4-9. page number: Reproduced: P. 5; Mentioned: P. 4. url: --- IMAGES