Payal Kapoor of Arushi Arts Gallery celebrates its 25th anniversary with Harvest 2025

A quarter century in the art world is not just a measure of years, but of the works seen, the conversations sparked, and the relationships quietly built between artists and audiences. For Payal Kapoor, founder and director of Arushi Arts Gallery, those 25 years have meant moving between the established and the emerging, between India’s deep-rooted traditions and its ever-evolving contemporary voice.

Harvest 2025, opening at the Salarjung Museum in Hyderabad, brings this journey into focus. It’s a collection that doesn’t try to be definitive, but instead reflects the instincts of a gallerist who has spent decades living with art. The line-up spans some of India’s most important modernists — F.N. Souza, M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza, Krishen Khanna, Ram Kumar, Tyeb Mehta, Bhupen Khakkhar, J. Swaminathan, Jangarh Singh Shyam — alongside artists whose practices continue to shape the present: Sanjay Bhattacharya, Laxma Goud, Satish Gujral, Satish Gupta, K.G. Subramanyan, Manu Parekh, Shobha Broota, Sakti Burman and more.

The selection speaks to Arushi Arts’ long-standing approach — to place artists in dialogue across generations and styles, letting their works draw connections that a viewer might not expect. This has been the gallery’s strength since its founding in 1993, whether showing in Delhi, Mumbai or Chandigarh, or taking Indian art to London, Paris, Singapore, Hong Kong and Los Angeles. Over more than 300 exhibitions, Kapoor has kept the focus on creating visibility for both new voices and established names, while also using art as a way to engage with wider social and cultural concerns.

Her own path into art came through design — trained in textiles and fashion, with a degree in English literature — and through a family background in industry. That combination of visual sensibility and organisational clarity has shaped how she works: balancing the demands of a global art market with a commitment to preserving and promoting traditional crafts, from weaving to textile arts. Initiatives like the DK Jain Art Prize, awarded to young and living traditional artists, underline this dual focus on heritage and innovation.

Harvest 2025 is not positioned as a retrospective, but as a continuation. It gathers together names that have defined Indian modernism, artists who have developed distinct vocabularies, and works that invite viewers to consider where Indian art has come from and where it is headed. In the setting of the Salarjung Museum, with its own layered history, the exhibition becomes part of a wider narrative — one in which individual works carry their own stories, yet collectively speak to a shared cultural arc.

Preview: Sunday, 31st August 2025

Time: 12 noon – 4:30 pm

Venue: Salarjung Museum, Hyderabad, Telangana 500002

Exhibition continues: Until Tuesday, 9th September 2025, 11 am – 4:30 pm