Not often does a single family leave an unspoken imprint on a city, and a country’s artistic culture. The ongoing exhibition, Family Resemblances: Sir JJ School and the Search for a Modern Indian Idiom, at the Dr Bhau Daji Lad Museum captures the unique story of one such family. The exhibition is curated by Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, honorary director and trustee, Dr BDL Museum, and gallerist. Mortimer Chatterjee.

Mehta, a former alumna of the Sir JJ School of Art like the show’s protagonists, shares that the exhibition is important since it is an integral part of the school’s story, among its other features.  The showcase centres around the works of Rustom Siodia, daughter Cumi Dallas, and her husband Homi Dallas. Where Siodia’s journey traverses from 1881 to 1946, and explores his ‘poetic portraits of Bombay’ as Mehta calls it, his daughter, Cumi went further to find synthesis of Indian miniature styles and Western education to establish herself in the Bombay Revivalist Movement in the early 20th Century. The third member of this familial trio, Homi Dallas was a key architect working with the firm Mistri & Bhedwar, and later served as the president of the Indian Institute of Architects, as well as co-founding the famed Parelkar & Dallas at Shivaji Park. “Their works reveal a tradition of artists searching for a modern idiom within the constraints of the convention passed down by the Bombay School of Art. We felt that a deep dive would examine the spectrum of practice at the Sir JJ School of Art,” the curator shares.