Tradition · oil-paste cloth painting

Rogan painting, Nirona

Also known as Rogan art, Nirona, Khatri Rogan, Rogan painting — Nirona, Kutch

Function

Arts & performance

Confidence

Not assessed

Location

23.690, 69.680

Worth knowing

The craft came to Kutch from Persia and by the late twentieth century was down to a single family, the Khatris of Nirona. A Rogan tree of life was given by the Indian prime minister to the president of the United States in 2014, which did more for the family's order book than fifty years of state patronage had.

Connections (2)

• Craft tradition ofKutch Ajrakh, Ajrakhpur

  Kutch carries an unusual density of textile-surface crafts within a few dozen kilometres — Ajrakh block printing at Ajrakhpur, bandhani tying, Rabari and Ahir embroidery, and Rogan painting at Nirona — all of them practised by Khatri and other Muslim artisan families who came into the region from Sindh. What they share is a client base of pastoral communities whose wealth was carried on the body, and a market that the 2001 earthquake and the relief economy afterwards reorganised completely.

• Craft tradition ofKutch Rann salt & embroidery

  The Rann of Kutch carries an unusual density of crafts within a few dozen kilometres — Rabari, Ahir and Jat embroidery, Ajrakh printing, bandhani, Rogan painting at Nirona, bell-making, and the Agariya salt-panners who spend eight months a year living on the salt flat itself. What they share is a client base of pastoral communities whose portable wealth was worn, and a market that the 2001 earthquake and the relief economy afterwards reorganised completely.

On these journeys

• Craft and industry — where things are made and why there

Sources

Wikipedia, “Rogan painting”. Geographical Indications Registry (Government of India) filings; Ministry of Textiles and Sangeet Natak Akademi craft documentation.

• Wikipedia — Rogan painting