THE KIRAN NADAR MUSEUM OF ART AND THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART NEW YORK TO CO-ORGANIZE A LANDMARK EXHIBITION ‘FRACTURED SKIES’ BY INDIAN ARTIST NILIMA SHEIKH
Nilima Sheikh: Fractured Skies will be the artist’s first solo presentation in New York
Nilima Sheikh, Son el Lumiere (detail), 2006 – 2016, Casein tempera on canvas scroll (Two sided), 120.1 x 72in
Collection: Kiran Nadar Museum of Art
New Delhi and New York, July 22, 2026: The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), New Delhi, announces Nilima Sheikh: Fractured Skies, an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA), organized in collaboration with MoMA. On view at MoMA from September 27, 2026, through June 13, 2027, the exhibition is devoted to the work of Indian artist Nilima Sheikh (b. 1945) and marks her first solo presentation in New York.
The exhibition is co-organized by Cara Manes, Associate Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA, and Roobina Karode, Artistic Director and Chief Curator, KNMA, with Elizabeth Wickham, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA.
In Sheikh’s words, “The artist’s role is to bear witness—to both the past and present.” Over five decades, Nilima Sheikh’s practice has reinvented narrative painting as a mode of historical witness and social engagement, reflecting and engaging with histories of displacement and violence, especially the partition of Punjab and the contested terrain of Kashmir. As sites formed through complex and layered histories, Sheikh reconfigures them in a vertical scroll format through the use of tempera, stencils, citations and poetry, folklore, as well as historical accounts.
Bringing together works from three major series from the past two decades, the exhibition traces Sheikh's enduring investigations into trauma, loss, memory, and renewal. At the center is a selection of works from Each Night Put Kashmir in Your Dreams (2003–14), a groundbreaking series of suspended, double-sided painted scrolls executed in casein tempera on unstretched canvas. The series reflects Sheikh’s sustained engagement with the culturally rich, politically complex, and historically contested region of the Kashmir Valley. Juxtaposed on the surrounding walls are works in a horizontal format from Home, Land (2023–25), a series of mixed tempera paintings on paper that reflect on the precarity and displacement experienced by the nomadic Bakarwal communities of Jammu and Kashmir. And finally, making its debut at MoMA is Shahid/Witness, Sheikh's most recent reflection on war and unrest across the world. Commissioned by KNMA and comprising ten monumental, suspended painted scrolls, the work responds to the distinctive architecture and scale of MoMA's Sue and Edgar Wachenheim III Gallery.
“Over the course of her distinguished career, Nilima Sheikh has developed a singular approach to artmaking, drawing on literary, historical, and vernacular traditions to create layered visual narratives that connect the past to the present,” said Cara Manes, Associate Curator, Department of Painting and Sculpture, MoMA. “Her paintings confront histories of violence, displacement, and erasure with deep sensitivity and formal invention. Centering lived experiences, particularly those of women, her works bear witness to the enduring power of human connections across time and space. Through her visionary practice, Sheikh has become a touchstone for artists following the path she forged.”
Roobina Karode, Artistic Director and Chief Curator, KNMA, adds, “Nilima Sheikh’s practice occupies a significant place in the contemporary art world, offering a profound South Asian lens to the shared complexities and predicaments amidst geopolitical conflicts. With a nuanced artistic sensibility, Sheikh works through an aesthetic of slowness, combining the tragic with the poetic, intricately weaving texts and images to meditate on states of longing and loss. By bridging local inheritance with urgent universal dialogues, this co-organized exhibition marks a defining moment in our ongoing mission to present South Asia’s visionary voices on the global stage.”
Painting for Nilima Sheikh serves as a repository of personal and collective memory, marked by shifting topographies, labouring figures, maps, poetry, traces of erasure and moods of quiescence. In that, she creates a space to make visible both the precariousness of the present times as well as the persistence of life, seeking renewal and hope.
Sponsorship
Major support for the exhibition is provided by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art.
Generous funding is provided by The Young Patrons Council of The Museum of Modern Art.
The Bloomberg Connects digital experience is made possible through the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies.
Artist Bio
Based in Baroda, India, Nilima Sheikh (b. 1945, New Delhi, India) is one of the most consequential artists working in South Asia today. Sheikh studied history at Delhi University from 1962 to 1965. In 1971, she received a master’s in painting from the Faculty of Fine Arts at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. Founded after Indian Independence, the school was an important center for artistic and intellectual exchange, and fostered a community that challenged inherited cultural and pedagogical frameworks. There, alongside her peers, Sheikh played a key role in shaping contemporary Indian art.
Sheikh’s recent solo exhibitions include Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong (2018); Gallery Espace at Bikaner House, New Delhi (2018); Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai (2017); the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois (2014); and Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi (2010). Sheikh is the recipient of the Nandjunda Rao Award by Karnataka Chitrakala Parishath, Bangalore (2021), and the Gagan Aban Puraskar Award by Visva Bharati University, Santiniketan (2011).
Selected group exhibitions include Barbican Centre, London (2024); Sharjah Biennial 15, Sharjah (2023); Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai (2022); Pera Museum, Istanbul (2020); Dhaka Art Summit, Dhaka (2020); Kochi-Muziris Biennale, Kochi (2018); documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017); and Singapore Biennale, Singapore (2016).
Sheikh’s work is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois; the Queensland Art Gallery, Brisbane; the Leicester Museum and Art Gallery, Leicester; Sharjah Art Museum, Sharjah; Guggenheim Museum, Abu Dhabi; and Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi.
About Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA)
Established through the initiative of avid art collector Kiran Nadar, the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) opened to the public in January 2010 as India’s first private museum dedicated to modern and contemporary art from the subcontinent. KNMA is a non-commercial, not-for-profit institution supported by the Shiv Nadar Foundation. It seeks to foster a dynamic relationship between art and culture through its exhibitions, publications, educational initiatives, and public programs. Committed to institutional collaborations and artist support networks, KNMA actively engages with diverse audiences through its wide-ranging programming. KNMA supports artists whose work engages with social and political questions while expanding global understanding of South Asian art.
KNMA has presented major solo exhibitions by artists including Nalini Malani, Zarina, Nasreen Mohamedi, and has collaborated with leading international institutions such as the MET Breuer, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina SofĂa in Madrid, Qatar Museums in Doha, the Public Art Fund, Museum of Modern Art, Barbican Centre and Tate Modern in London, among others. The museum’s ever-expanding collection with seminal modernist and contemporary works from India and South Asia region is now broadening its scope to include classical and folk art, stretching the span from the 3rd century CE to the 20th century, tracing historical trajectories in Indian art alongside the experimental practices of young contemporaries.
KNMA is set to evolve into a landmark cultural destination with a new location, an expansive 100,000- square-meter (over 1 million square feet) architectural marvel, near the Indira Gandhi International Airport, New Delhi. It will feature multiple exhibition spaces, a performance arts centre, an education block, an archive centre, a library, restaurants, and a members’ room. Strengthening its role as a cultural epicenter, this expansion will further KNMA’s mission to be a vibrant hub for visual and performing arts, fostering artistic innovation and cultural dialogue.
www.knma.org
About The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA)
The Museum of Modern Art connects people from around the world to the art of our time. MoMA aspires to be a catalyst for experimentation, learning, and creativity, a gathering place for all, and a home for artists and their ideas. Founded in 1929, MoMA realizes its mission by establishing, caring for, and presenting a dynamic collection of the highest order that reflects the vitality and complexity of modern and contemporary art; by welcoming millions of people every year to explore its exhibitions and participate in onsite and online programs; by sustaining a library, archives, and conservation laboratory that are recognized as international centers of research; and by supporting innovative scholarship and publications.
www.moma.org.
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