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Narayanan Akkitham at Galerie AB: an exhibition highlighted by La Gazette Drouot

Galerie AB is pleased to share the publication of an article dedicated to its exhibition "Narayanan Akkitham, India in Paris at AB", published on October 20, 2026, in La Gazette Drouot, written by Benoit Gaboriaud.

This article highlights the career of Narayanan Akkitham, an Indian artist born in 1939 who has lived in Paris since 1967, where for over half a century he has developed a body of work at the crossroads of Western abstraction and Indian symbolic traditions.

A student of Jean Bertholle, Akkitham explores the possibilities of geometric abstraction while seeking to soften its lines by introducing rounded calligraphic forms. His compositions thus create a dialogue between formal rigor, movement, and cultural heritage.

Featuring around thirty oil paintings, the exhibition "Narayanan Akkitham, India in Paris at AB" invites visitors to discover a body of work shaped by the meeting of two artistic worlds. It bears witness to the richness of the exchanges between India and Paris, as well as the artist's unique place in the contemporary art landscape.

Galerie AB would like to thank La Gazette Drouot and Benoit Gaboriaud.

The exhibition is on view at Galerie AB until November 7, 2026.

📍 Galerie AB — 5, rue Jacques Callot, 75006 Paris

Read the full article on the La Gazette Drouot website:
https://www.gazette-drouot.com/article/narayanan-akkitham/105569

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Article content:

When the New School of Paris merges with Tantric art

"Abstraction feels a bit rigid to me. From the late 1970s, I sought to break its lines by incorporating rounded calligraphy," explains Narayanan Akkitham, an Indian artist who arrived in Paris in 1967, where he has lived and worked for over half a century. A former student of Jean Bertholle at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, he established his style in the 1970s, following a brief figurative period, by tirelessly fusing French geometric abstraction with Tantric painting. The latter was experiencing a resurgence and a new interpretation in India at the time, particularly following the 1966 publication of Ajit Mookerjee's book, Tantra Art: Its Philosophy & Physics. After meeting the artist in his studio fifteen years ago, Agnès Aittouarès is finally presenting some thirty abstract oils in her gallery, ranging from small to large formats and spanning five decades of creation, from 1976 to 2024. This selection shows how this calligraphy, which constantly appears and disappears, has become both the common thread of his work and his signature. It blends with triangles, circles, squares, and lines to form a visual vocabulary strongly inspired by Tantric diagrams, Vedic thought, and Indian cosmological and mural painting traditions. Although some of his canvases have entered French public collections, notably those of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and the Musée d'art Hyacinthe Rigaud in Perpignan, his market value in Europe remains modest. However, thanks to initiatives like this, it could follow the positive momentum he already enjoys in the Indian market. BENOIT GABORIAUD