Mithila

Song of The Palanquin-Bearers

Let’s tackle some FAQs to better appreciate this fascinating, historical mode of travel and the people who made it possible.

Dark Mother – Goddesses of wrath

Within the mythology of the Mother Goddess there exists a duality. Just as her benevolent aspects are depicted in many forms, here are some of her fiercest and most terrifying forms

‘reimagine’ is an ongoing Instagram-exclusive series through which we make connections across the Sarmaya collection and examine the extent to which our ways of seeing — and an object’s own meaning — are informed by time, space, and context

Nature & Nurture in the Art of Pushpa Kumari

Mithila artist Pushpa Kumari’s aesthetic genius combines the traditional with the contemporary, and the personal with the political

Drawing Strength – How Madhubani Artists Have Challenged Caste Oppression

Dalit and Bahujan artists always have infused creative genius into Madhubani painting and kept it relevant. As their struggle for equality rages vigorously in society at large, it flows too through the veins of this art

Art of the Unexpected – In conversation with Santosh Kumar Das

Leaping off a firm grounding of artistic legacy, Das has created a space that feels fluid, open and wholly his own. In conversation with the Madhubani artist

Building a Mithila Forest – Virtual Workshop

Sarmaya Arts Foundation conducted a virtual workshop with KK Academy, Lucknow on 26th October 2020. The workshop was held for an excited group of 21 participants between the ages of 6-8 years as well as a few teachers. It was an art based learning session introducing the students to Mithila or Madhubani, the beautiful indigenous… Read more »

Untitled [Kohbar]

Mithila or Madhubani art originated as a ritual wall painting in Mithila region, primarily done on the occasion of marriage. Traditionally, it has been a woman’s preserve. With modern times the medium of art shifted to canvas, and on rare occasions to cloth. Depicted here is one of the most popular and iconic of these… Read more »

On The Road in Madhubani

Photographer and author Chirodeep Chaudhuri curates a virtual exhibition of photographs taken during Sarmaya’s trip to Madhubani

Divine, Human, Feminine, Feminist – Mithila art and its women

How a matriarchal art practice emerged in response to conservatism and the patriarchy. Locating the divine as well as the human in Madhubani art

Madhubani

Welcome to the historic land of Mithila, home to a beautiful art that is part-myth and part-memory. Today a town called Madhubani in Bihar houses some of the most gifted artists of this tradition. We are proud to present our second film Madhubani – Art from a Sacred Land, which travels to a tiny hamlet… Read more »

“Our books are like a room out of a museum”

Dulari Devi is an artist but she wasn’t always one. This is how the story begins in her autobiographical children’s book, Following My Paint Brush, published by Tara Books, an independent publishing house that brings art by Indian women, folk and indigenous artists to young readers. Coming from a community of fisherfolk in Bihar, Dulari… Read more »

The Walls Have Eyes: The discovery and evolution of Mithila art

Richly detailed paintings full of colour and beauty that turned simple homes into wonderlands and told fantastical tales — Mithila has a history of tradition, quietude and rapid change, as much transformed by the outside as from within

Sarmaya presents ‘Madhubani – Art from a Sacred Land’

The stories, histories and personalities behind our short film on the many-layered art of Madhubani

Bhaktapur’s Mithila influence

This text and images below are reproduced with permission from the author Bhaskar Koirala and Nepali Times and it was originally published on the Nepali Times website King Harisingh Deva of Simraongarh must have sat on his heavy-set chair while a pair of household staff was cross-legged on the black chlorite stone floor massaging… Read more »

Madhubani or Mithila Painting

Colourful creepers of Madhubani painting snake all over the state of Bihar, intertwined with the cultural identity of the state. This art reveals so much about the spiritual anchors and domestic rhythms of the people of the historic region of Mithila. But to get under the skin of it, it helps to understand a little about… Read more »