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El Bab Gallery celebrates Bengali Rabindranath Tagore Two exhibitions related to Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali poet, novelist, musician and painter, open at El bab Gallery at the Cairo Opera House Grounds, will run until 17 July
Two exhibitions related to Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore: a Philatelic Exhibition on Tagoreand and Tagore in Kantha were inaugurated in a grand function at El Bab Gallery at the Opera House Complex on 5 July. Theexhibitions, part oftheyearlong celebrations to commemoratethe150thbirth anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagoreand,were organized bytheMaulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture (MACIC) and Embassy of India, Cairo, in cooperation withtheForeign Cultural Relations SectorandtheFine Arts Sector oftheEgyptian Ministry of Culture. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941) was Asia's first Nobel laureate. He wontheNobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore was a master of several literary forms – he was a poet, novelist, short story writerandplaywright. His contributions reshaped Bengali literatureandmusic inthelate 19thandearly 20thcenturies. Tagore is perhapstheworld's only writer whose compositions have been adopted asthenational anthems of two countries: IndiaandBangladesh. Attheage of 60, Tagore also became a celebrated painter. Tagore was also a pioneer in education (thehonorific,Gurudev,means teacher) andpromoter of rural reconstruction. He set up the Santiniketan school andlater a world-famous university, Visva Bharati in West Bengal, India, as well as a centre for promotion of traditional artsandcrafts in Sriniketan. A national leaderandan internationalist, Tagore visited many countries during his life including Egypt in 1925. ThePhilatelic Exhibition on Tagore consists of 20 panels of commemorative stampsandother rare objects issued bythepostal departments of around 20 countries on Rabindranath Tagore. Some ofthese items, belonging to private collectors in India, are more than a century old. Sekhar Chakrabarti, one of three Indian collectors whose collections are on display, is here in Cairo ascurator ofthestamp exhibition.TheTagore in Kantha exhibition includes 13 panels of traditional, kantha style embroidery work illustrating Tagore's short stories, songs, poems, dance dramas. Kantha embroidery, practiced to this day by rural women in West Bengal, IndiaandBangladesh, usesa“running stitch” to create beautiful motifs on fabric. The style was originally used by Bengali women to make quilts from old, worn out saris.Thekantha exhibition was conceived by Shamlu Dudeja, who has worked for over 25 years setting up NGOs fortherevival of kantha work in West Bengal. Thetwo exhibitions are sponsored bytheIndian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), New Delhiandwere organised by ICCR'sRabindranath Tagore Centre in Kolkata. This is the first time the exhibits have travelled out of India.Theexhibitions will run until 17 July attheEl Bab Gallery, Cairo Opera House Grounds.
