Salon: The Indian Way By Gallerist, Devashi Jain

Devashi Jain’s immersion in the art world began early, shaped by her upbringing with Aparajita Jain, one of India’s most influential gallerists, and deepened by rigorous study and exposure to international art ecosystems in New York and beyond. Now, at just 24, Devashi introduces The Salon Series at Nature Morte, a bold and deeply informed initiative designed to bridge Indian and international modernism, making global art histories accessible to Indian audiences and reframing Indian modernism within a wider, transnational dialogue.

Your early exposure to the art world must have been unique, being brought up by Aparajita Jain, one of India’s leading gallerists. How did your early days shape your own artistic and curatorial sensibilities?
Art has always been a central aspect of my life due to my mother. She has always made sure that we visit galleries, museums and different historical sites and has exposed me to everything that she had access to. As I grew older, she would spend significant time discussing different pieces or how to look at art more critically by taking into account the context. Between this and seeing her interactions with artists and other professionals in the art world, it has shaped a large part of my understanding. The other parts came into focus in my time in New York with my studies. I think a blend of this has shaped my own sensibilities and continues to shape them further. 

At just 24, you are launching Nature Morte’s new Salon Series. What inspired you to conceive this initiative, and what gap in the Indian art scene are you hoping to fill?
At 24, I feel very fortunate to be in a position where I can hopefully contribute to shaping how Indian audiences engage with global art histories. The inspiration in part stems from my time in New York where I was part of many engaging cross-cultural dialogues (not only about art, but a myriad of other topics) and I found that these were always some of the most exciting conversations to be had. Beyond that, Indian modernism is often framed as secondary to Western modernism and international blue-chip art is still primarily experienced by Indian collectors abroad, instead of in India. I wanted to create a space for this conversation.
The series is about placing Indian and international modernists in the same space—to show that Indian modernists like Souza were asking questions just as radical as their counterparts in Paris or New York. It is also about access, by bringing works by Picasso or Renoir into an Indian gallery means these icons can be encountered by a much larger audience—some of whom may not have had the opportunity to do so abroad.
The gap I hope to fill includes giving Indian collectors further confidence and opportunity to engage with international modernism in India (with the same transparency and information expected abroad) as well as reframing Indian modernism within a global conversation.

The inaugural Salon: The India Way deliberately places Indian modernists alongside Western icons such as Picasso and Giacometti. What conversations or discoveries do you hope will emerge from this 'co-presence,' and how do you think collectors and viewers might respond?
The idea of co-presence is integral to Salon: The India Way. By placing Indian modernists alongside Western icons like Picasso or Giacometti, we are trying to move from the linear, Eurocentric narrative of modernism and show that these experiments were happening across geographies. What I hope emerges as the viewer spends time with the works, are discoveries as well as points of divergence. For example, when one sees Souza’s distorted figures next to Picasso’s Le gueridon, you can see a shared urgency to dismantle and reinvent form, both equally radical. However, Souza was shaped by his upbringing and postcolonial realities while Picasso’s still life fractures objects in the material world into geometric abstraction. For viewers and collectors, I hope this shows that both can be seen together as equally radical innovators across continents.

With educational experiences at NYU and Sotheby’s Institute of Art, how has global exposure influenced your perspective on art collecting and curation in India?
My time at NYU and Sotheby’s Institute of Art gave me a global perspective on the functioning of an art ecosystem. I was able to learn how institutions, markets, audiences and all the other forces in the art ecosystem interact with each other. As a mature market, the infrastructure abroad, from the way the collectors engage with art to the advisory systems, provided deep insight and learning to how the market functions. That ecosystem actively promoted cultural participation. Coming back to India, one can see the many opportunities and gaps. Collectors are passionate but simply do not have access to the same level of institutional resources. Global exposure made me realise how important it is to build this locally, to create platforms where access, advisory and scholarship can go hand in hand, especially as the market continues to grow rapidly.

The concept draws from the historic Paris Salon but is reimagined to challenge Eurocentric narratives. Can you share how you see the future of transnational exhibitions evolving, and what role you want the Salon Series to play in that shift?
The history of the Paris Salon is double edged as it shaped cultural taste but also reinforced Eurocentric narratives. I think the future of transnational exhibitions lies in moving beyond this Eurocentric model of influence and instead also acknowledges different centres of artistic innovation. The next step is to build platforms where modern and contemporary practices from Asia, Africa, Latin America and more can be placed in dialogue on equal footing.
This is where I hope the Salon Series can contribute. By bringing international blue-chip works into India and placing them alongside Indian modernists, we are not just importing works from Western canon but reframing it. This allows us to show modernism as simultaneously unfolding globally. In the long run, I hope this series can act as a bridge by making global art histories more accessible to Indian audience while also positioning Indian modernism as central to international conversation.

Words Hansika Lohani 
Date 5-09-2025