Historian Charles Greig donated 50 paintings and watercolours to Tate; from colonial India

NewsWorld NewsUK NewsAfter decades collecting artworks from colonial-era India, British historian Charles Greig has donated 50 paintings and watercolours to Tate, including rare 18th-century portraits; a public display is planned for 2028 After decades collecting artworks from colonial-era India, British historian Charles Greig has donated 50 paintings and watercolours to Tate, including rare 18th-century portraits; a public display is planned for 2028 TOI Lifestyle Desk / TIMESOFINDIA.COM / Oct 29, 2026, 03:59 IST Johann Zoffany's 'Portrait of Prince Jawan Bakht' (Image credit: tate.org.uk) A painting is never merely a record of truth, but a subject of representation and reimagination.

And artworks specially prepared while recording the British colonial period in India are not merely art, but a glimpse into an India that exists today only in a few inches of frame. This is particularly true of artworks created in India during the 18th and 19th centuries, when British colonial expansion was changing the political and cultural landscape of the subcontinent.

According to the Art Newspaper and a press release attributed to Tate, a collection of 50 such works has now found a permanent home at Tate in London, following a donation by British art historian Charles Greig, who spent over 4 decades bringing them together.The collection includes paintings, watercolours and miniatures by Indian and European artists who lived and worked in India.

The works offer different perspectives on the period, from portraits of Indian figures to landscapes that record places during a time of considerable change. A free public display featuring works from the collection is planned at Tate Britain in 2028, giving visitors an opportunity to explore a part of art history shaped by the relationship between Britain and India.

Greig assembled the collection over approximately 45 years, developing an interest in the ways artists represented India and how the people of the pivoting colonial period was preserved in art. His decision to donate the works to Tate reflects his belief that a collection built through years of research should be accessible to the public rather than remain in private hands.Through myriad textures, strokes and frames, the paintings coalesce names that must be familiar to students of art history and others whose contributions have been widely recorded and recognised.

Among the artists represented are Indian painters Sita Ram and Ghulam Ali Khan, alongside European artists Johan Zoffany and Rudolf Swoboda, with the British landscape painters Thomas Daniell and William Daniell also featured in the collection.

Zoffany's 'Colonel Mordaunt's Cock Match' (Image credit: Wikimedia Commons) For Greig, the decision to donate the works was closely tied to the question of who should be able to see and study them. He has described himself as a temporary steward of the collection, emphasising the importance of preserving the artworks together and making them available beyond a private audience.When the works go on display at Tate Britain in 2028, visitors will be able to encounter these paintings within a public museum setting, where their artistic qualities can be considered alongside the histories that shaped their creation.

The display will also provide an opportunity to look beyond familiar accounts of colonial India and consider the artists, patrons and subjects whose lives intersected during this period.For a collection assembled over decades, its move into a public institution heralds a significant change in how the art that encompassed a significant period of British raj can now be explored.

These paintings, now being integrated in a collection, are writing a historical record that can be explored for years to come by people from all over the world, as the history of British India, its people and its faces are preserved in paint You use AI every day.

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