Gallery Espace

Gallery Espace was established in New Delhi in 1989 by Renu Modi with the encouragement of M F Husain who also designed its distinctive galloping horse logo.

Gallery Espace opened its doors in October 1989 with a show of autobiographical works* by Husain. It was located in a small boardroom of a corporate office in New Delhi’s upscale New Friends Colony market. Three decades on, it continues to occupy the same address though it is now a two tiered space with state-of-the-art lighting and display systems.

In just a few years, the Gallery had gained a reputation for innovative programming with a succession of large-scale exhibitions dedicated to a single medium or material – Drawing’94, Sculpture’95, Miniprint’96, and later Bronze (2006). These were landmark shows as they turned the spotlight on these artwork categories which had traditionally lacked exhibition patronage.

The gallery has worked with several generations of artists down the years – from the Bombay Progressives such as Akbar Padamsee, Tyeb Mehta, Ram Kumar and Krishen Khanna, to J Swaminathan, Manjit Bawa, Krishna Reddy, Bhupen Khakar, Laxma Gaud, Jogen Choudhury, Jeram Patel, Mrinalini Mukherjee, Manu Parekh, and Anupam Sud, and also Subodh Gupta, Sudarshan Shetty, Ravinder Reddy, and Kishnamachari Bose, among the Contemporaries. The Gallery has also served as a launch pad for emerging artists of promise, several of whom such as B. Manjunath Kamath and G.R. Iranna are now established names. It continues to promote fresh talent, with recent additions to its roster such as the Nepali artist Harendra Kushwaha whose practice involves cutting and weaving paper, and Ishita Chakraborty, recipient of the 2020-21 Visiting Artist Fellowship of the Lakshmi Mittal and Family South Asia Institute at Harvard University. Kushwaha and Chakraborty join the distinguished list of artists represented by Gallery Espace that includes Zarina, Nilima Sheikh, Kamath, Iranna, Chitra Ganesh, Shambhavi and Ravi Agarwal, to name a few.

Today Gallery Espace is a well-known brand recognised and respected in India and abroad for its nuanced aesthetic, bringing together Indian and contemporary sensibilities, its inter-disciplinary approach to programming and professional probity.