Even before your gestures come to the forefront, it is your facial and eye expressions which give away what you feel. Your innermost emotions, your status, the slight visibility of owning your might, the happiness in achieving something, all are given away by your face. A little smirk, a little twitch, a blink of an eye or even rolling out one, points out to your feelings even when you don’t say a word. This power of the facial expression is curated by Sonali Batra through the works of around 50 artists and presented through the exhibition titled Portraits in Time: Power, Presence and Identity Across Centuries. Spanning timelines, geographies and culture, Batra’s powerful curation presented by Great Banyan Art is all set to begin from April 8, and is surely an exhibition that one should not miss.
Do you feel overwhelming when you spot hundreds of eyes gazing at you…only these eyes span centuries? From early European academic realism to modernist expression and contemporary reinterpretation of the human image, these facial expressions reveal the psychology and conceptual reflection of understanding of the society which has shifted through eras.
Sonali mentions, “What fascinates me about portraiture is how it transforms over time, from a symbol of authority to a space for psychological depth and personal expression. Portraits in Time explores how identity is never fixed but constantly shaped by history, culture, and context. Portraiture is not only about resemblance. It is about presence. And presence is always shaped by power, memory, and the time in which we live.”
Artists on display include Krishen Khanna, Anjolie Ela Menon, Hemen Mazumdar, Jamini Prakash Gangooly, F. N. Souza, Abalal Rahiman, M. F. Pithawalla, K. R. Ravi Verma, Mukundan Tampi, Shobha Broota, Rabin Mondal, Maniklal Banerjee, Rasik Raval, Tom Vattakuzhy, M. Senathipathi, K. S. Gopal, Madeleine Fawkes, Édouard Frédéric Wilhelm Richter, L. Harris, Jean Francois Portaels, Jose Mallol Suazo, Hugues Merle, Rose Bonnor, Oscar Schütte, Marie Shayans, Ibrahim Shahada, Terry Turrell, Kaori Someya, Pavel Bulva, and Francesca Schiffrin.
Going back to the history of portraits, it was one of the most important ways to document and freeze the faces of the noblemen and women, thus making it both a symbol and record. Artists specialising in portraits were commissioned in courts to make paintings of those in power. Many of these original portraits are still hung in mansions and palaces depicting lineage. With the demand for portraits rising, the demand, innovation and experimentation also went up in the artist community, with each trying to make a name for themselves. While initially, this art form which is said to have travelled from Europe to India and adopted by the latter, only depicted the face value; with time, modernists started using portraits as a tool of revelation rather than true depiction.
What: Portraits in Time: Power, Presence, and Identity Across Centuries
Where: LTC, Bikaner House, Delhi
When: April 8 – 15, 2026
Timings: 11 am – 7 pm
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