Osian’s had recently postponed Cinefan, its annual film festival, from July to October citing “unbearable heat and humidity” as the reason.

Jashn Osianama will kick off at the Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai on June 26 and artworks will remain on display till July 2. The Delhi exhibition, starting on July 4, will be around for more than two weeks, till July 21.

With around 800 artworks to be exhibited chronologically, Jashn Osianama is going to be one of the biggest art exhibitions in the country. Neville Tuli, chairman, Osian’s, said, “It will be a truly magnificent exhibition, the likes of which very few museums in the world would ever have witnessed.”

More than 20 Indian artistes will be part of the exhibition, including the likes of Manjit Bawa, Satish Gujral and Surendran Nair. The exhibition this year focusses on “500 Years of Violence Non Violence in both Mumbai and Delhi”. According to Osian’s, aesthetic ideas that will be prominent during the exhibition include “themes such as death, the erotic, the human face and the history of man, animal and nature”.

The artworks will be diverse and span a variety of themes; Tibetan thangkas, Japanese Samurai art and photographs by Henri-Cartier Bresson, to name a few.

“Each work stands out for its visual power and the integrity with which they embraced underlying ideas, which range from themes such as Partition, the refugee influx, the Bangladesh War, the Emergency and the killing of Safdar Hashmi, among many others,” Tuli said.

Though Osian’s has hosted about 12 exhibitions since 2000, the intention behind Jashn Osianama is to expand its scale.