Aicon Gallery is pleased to present Jamini Roy & Somnath Hore: Figuration in the Bengal School, an exhibition exploring the extremes of representation and artistic vision within India's Bengal School of Art. Based primarily in Kolkata and Shantiniketan, the Bengal School was an artistic movement and painting tradition founded at the turn of the 19th century, which spread throughout India during the British Raj of the early 20th century. Originally an avant-garde and nationalist movement in reaction to previous academic styles, the Bengal School was led by Abanindranath Tagore (Indian, 1871-1951) and sought to modernize Moghul and Rajput styles, to counter the influence of Western art traditions. Along with his brother Gaganendranath Tagore (Indian, 1867-1938) and pupil Nandalal Bose (India, 1882-1966), these artists represented the early modernists of India. The Bengal School was often associated with Indian nationalism (swadeshi) as an official Indian art style, but also found support from British art institutions under the epithet of the Indian Society of Oriental Art (founded in 1907 by the Tagore brothers). From the 1920s onward, prominent Bengal School artists embarked on widely divergent, often aesthetically polarized paths. However, figuration remained the central focus for those at the forefront of the movement's modernist evolution. Some embraced images of tranquility and nature, the darker forces of humanity, exploring famine, spiritual torment and violent conflict. Jamini Roy and Somnath Hore are perhaps, respectively, the most prominent representatives of these two opposing aesthetic forces, the former influencing the latter, and both leaving their indelible marks upon the future of modern Indian art.