No one knows exactly how many south Asian miniature paintings are held in public and private collections in the UK, but Hammad Nasar, co-curator of a new exhibition at the MK Gallery in Milton Keynes, estimates it is at least 100,000. “As a sort of a thought exercise: imagine if there were 20,000 works by, say, Turner sitting in museums in Lahore or New Delhi,” he says. “What would that mean? And to whom?”
Beyond the Page will feature more than 170 artworks, including miniature paintings going back to the mid-16th century and the responses of 20th- and 21st-century artists – from south Asia and beyond – to these works, and to the form in general. Not that “miniature” is a “terribly agreed term”, says Nasar. “It’s a bit like when people say ‘the Middle East’: the middle of where? East of what?” While the works are generally small, “they don’t need to be the size of your thumbnail. They more share an approach to materials, a rigour of application and a kind of intimacy of encounter, no matter what the scale.”
