Rajasthan is home to most of India’s famed miniaturists. In fact, there are so many of these artists that they are often out of work or working for the tourist industry making reproductions. These painted photographs are made on bookplates because the pigments used by the miniaturists do not adhere to photographs. A private photography dealer and his colleague, a textile importer who frequently goes to India, were fascinated by the artists’ love for intensely colored detail and offered them these photographic images, allowing the artists free rein as to which parts of each bookplate they wanted to not only accentuate with their own color perceptions, but also to embellish with their own subtle or not so subtle variations on theme. The artists have chosen to remain anonymous, and produce only a few of these examples in a year.
http://www.cavinmorris.com
