Celebrating 50 years of Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation (20th October 1969 – 2019), through an Exhibition titled Portraying the City Palace Museum, Udaipur through brush and lens of 50, The City Palace, Udaipur views in archival, digital photographs and watercolour paintings.
The age-old tradition of patronizing the arts has continued down into the 21st century with Shriji Arvind Singh Mewar of Udaipur. On 20th October 1969, The City Palace Museum, Udaipur, a vision of Maharana Bhagwat Singh Mewar of Udaipur, came into being. The challenge for Shriji, was to find sustainable models to preserve the Heritage of Mewar while integrating the traditional with the contemporary for the future generations. Shriji is today focusing on the challenges that Udaipur will have to face in the future. “I am now concentrating my thoughts on developing model which will protect the tangible and intangible Living Heritage of Mewar and will also be a practical model of sustainable development.”
Shriji feels that in contemporary times, we should move away from a singular cultural identification and our endeavour should not identify the city with any one particular monument, or any single concept and idea, however unique it may be. “We envision Udaipur as a destination that is the embodiment of a living heritage that is sustaining the essence of the past, yet continually updating itself with modern elements” he says.
The exhibition commemorates the golden anniversary or the 50 years of The City Palace Museum, Udaipur an integral part of Maharana of Mewar Charitable Foundation and the generations of artists that have been patronized by the Mewar Family. In celebration of the traditions of painting and photography, 50 archival photographs of The City Palace of Udaipur from the Museum’s collection have each been recreated in the mediums of water colour painting and modern day photography. The artists patronized as part of this project are Mr. Anurag Mehta, water colour artist and Mr. Prashant Lohar, photographer, both from Udaipur. Each of the 50 works of water colour paintings and modern day photographs have been prepared in archival quality and will be housed within the Museum as part of its collection. The exhibition is displayed at Fateh Niwas Gallery, 1st floor of Zenana Mahal, The City Palace, Udaipur, Rajasthan, India.
