1. What did renowned archeologist Mortimer Wheeler describe as follows? “"She's about fifteen years old I should think, not more, but she stands there with bangles all the way up her arm and nothing else on. A girl perfectly, for the moment, perfectly confident of herself and the world. There's nothing like her, I think, in the world?”
2. The main part of a well known work of art titled ‘The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living’ deteriorated and was replaced in 2006. What was the main part, and name the artist?
3. Fiction. What is the most famous portrait painted by a certain Basil Hallward, who is infatuated by his subject’s beauty?
4. A painted stucco-coated limestone bust of which wife of Pharoah Akhenaten is the most copied work of art from ancient Egypt?
5. The National Gallery of Modern Art holds almost 7000 works of this prolific artist, who also designed the Padma Shree awards. But his most famous creation was a black on white linocut print of Mahatma Gandhi during the Dandi Salt March. Just name the artist.
6. In the 14th century, Frenchman Eustache de Saint Pierre and five others offered their lives to the English to save the rest of their city from slaughter. The incident was immortalized by sculptor Auguste Rodin in 1895. The first cast stands in the city, but other are visible around the world, including Paris, New York and Stanford University. Name the city and the sculpture
7. Which collection of classical Greek statues were originally at the temple of the Parthenon and the Acropolis but are now residing in the UK and referred to by the name of the Earl who purchased them in the 19th century?
8. In 1981, what was finally returned to the country of its creation by the Museum of Modern Art after the country became a democratic constitutional monarchy?
9. The Frieze of Life is as series of autobiographical paintings which include Separation, Melancholi and The Kiss. However, the most famous work of this series was painted in 1893 after the artist went for a stroll with his friends in Oslo. Name the painting.
10. From March to May 2010, the Museum of Modern Art held a major retrospective of the work of Maria Abramovic, regarded as one of the pioneers of her specific field of art, and patrons could come and view her most famous work, The Artist is Present. With which specific art form is Maria associated?
Answers
1. The Dancing Girl of Mohenjodaro,
2. A tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde, created by Damien Hirst
3. Dorian Gray, in Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray
4. The bust of Nefertiti, which currently resides in the Neues Museum in Berlin
5. Nandalal Bose, whose students include K G Subrmanayam and Ramkinkar Baij
6. Calais, the sculpture was titled ‘The Burghers of Calais’
7. The Elgin Marbles, named after the Earl of Elgin. Lord Byron was one of the few who protested at the time, terming it as vandalism
8. Pablo Picasso’s Guernica. In his will Picasso had specified that the painting would only return to Spain when it was no longer a dictatorship
9. The Scream by Edvard Munch, twice stolen from Oslo museum
10. Performance Art. The Artist is Present was a 736-hour show, in which she sat immobile in the museum's atrium while spectators were invited to take turns sitting opposite her
Joy Bhattacharjya is a quizmaster and Project Director, FIFA U-17 World Cup
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