Tagore Exhibition at El Bab Gallery, Cairo begins…..
To commemorate the 150th birth anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore, the Maulana Azad Centre for Indian Culture (MACIC), Embassy of India, Cairo, in cooperation with the Foreign Cultural Relations Sector and the Fine Arts Sector of the Egyptian Ministry of Culture has organized exhibition related to Tagore which was inaugurated on 5 July, 2011 by H.E Dr Emad Abou Ghazi, the Egyptian Minister of Culture and H.E Mr R.Swaminathan, Ambassador of India at El Bab Gallery at the Opera House Complex. ‘A Philatelic Exhibition on Tagore’ consists of 20 panels of commemorative stamps and other rare philatelic objects issued by the postal departments of around 20 foreign countries on Rabindranath Tagore. Some of these items are more than a century old and belong to private collectors in India. Mr Sekhar Chakrabarti, whose collection has been displayed in this exhibition, is the curator of the show at Cairo. The other collection on Tagore, displayed in the exhibition is of Mr Moloy Sarkar of Kolkata.
India's Ambassador in Cairo Mr. Swaminathan, Sekhar Chakrabarti,Minister of Culture Dr. Emad Abu Ghazi and other dignitaries at the exhibition
Another exhibition presents Tagore's work, called ‘Kantha Works’ and contains 13 of Tagore’s paintings that visualize short stories, songs and poems. All the paintings are made by the tradition style of embroidery, known by its local name ‘Kantha’ and still in practice until this day by rural women in West Bengal and Bangladesh in India. Bengali women used Kantha art to make blankets.
Tagore was fascinated by traditional art, hence his interest in ‘Kantha.’ Miss Shamlo Dodega, who worked for more than 25 years to revive Kantha art by establishing NGOs, came up with the idea of this exhibition.
- Moloy Sarkar, Kolkata
