The catalogue as book

An interesting trend in these times of blue-chip art investments has been the manner in which the catalogue has transformed into a coffee-table book, surviving long after the sale/exhibition/auction for which it was intended.

In a country where even books on senior artists are hard to come by""a dozen, give or take a couple more or less, would be a good estimate of the number of titles on contemporary art/artists""the catalogue-that-would-be-a-book is a wonderful addition to our bookshelves.

In part, at least, the trend owes much to Osian's of Mumbai, with its handsome and exhaustive catalogues that first put together enough information on art movements, art, and the artists to document archival material that could be used for reference as well as for research and study by those for whom such material had till then come mostly from the West (no wonder Indians are more likely to be familiar with Salvador Dali and the Surrealists than F N Souza and the Bombay Progressives, for example).

Bowring's was never quite able to achieve the same level of excellence, but in recent times, the Delhi Art Gallery's biannual Manifestations show (in Mumbai and Delhi) has taken the genre of catalogue-books further.

The volume under review has extended Osian's oeuvre through a book that is hardbound and comes with a slipcase, making it extremely handsome and, for the price, particularly collectible since, inevitably, it is bound to have limited copies in print.

It is in this reference that the editor, Roobina Karode's introduction ("Roots/Routes: Mapping the contours of 20th century art in India") is welcome.

Though the overview is necessarily sketchy and undertakes the journey as seen through the 100 canvases of 100 artists (over roughly 100 years) that form part of the exhibition/catalogue, the perspective highlights the major trends and movements that contemporary Indian art was influenced by in the 20th century, before ending up at its current eclectic phase "that has taken on so many fresh shapes".

The journey is peppered with comments on particular works from the exhibition/book that help to illustrate the points made in each essay.

Twenty-three art critics post the commentary on the 100 works and artists, and each is complete in itself. The page-long editorial portraits summarise the artist and his work against a particular period or time, and then devote themselves to an appraisal of the artist's works, as well as the exhibited work.

This provides valuable information on the artwork, the series to which it belongs, the artist, and any art movement that characterises it. While simplistic in its approach, it makes each critique complete for the lay person, who will find he has much to learn simply by reading up on the artist and his represented work.

The imposed style has its limitations, particularly since it does not allow digressions, but to the editor's credit, each artist's editorial overview comes loaded with information, and the unvarying styling allows the reader/viewer to easily understand the nuances of modern art.

This is particularly important, given that the 100 artists include some of the biggest on the Indian marquee, from A R Chugtai, Hemen Mazumdar, and Jamini Roy and the Tagores, to K H Ara, Akbar Padamsee, F N Souza, Himmat Shah, S H Raza, even Meera Mukherjee, Sunil Das, and J Swaminathan.

Catalogues usually carry listings of artists' works or exhibitions towards the end, so it is interesting to see what, for example, the book has to say about M F Husain, recently controversial for his Rs 100 crore fee for 100 works (coincidentally, the same number of works as in Manifestations II).

Written by Anahite Contractor, she is swiftly able to place him in context: "Whether it is celluloid or canvas, designing a chair or a gufa (cave) in Ahmedabad, Maqbool Fida Husain executes each element of his work with an amazing dexterity and acumen. He possesses an intuitive feel for a given medium and attacks his pictorial space with unwavering confidence even today, decades after his initiation into the formal world of fine arts, into which he strayed, after much thought, from his humble world of film hoardings."

Rich material indeed, sadly something that can hardly be said for Husain's included work ""Theorama, brush and ink on paper""in the book. But then, this is a review of the book and not the art, and on that count, it's a winner hands down.

MANIFESTATIONS II: INDIAN ART IN THE 20TH CENTURY

Delhi Art Gallery
Pages: 283, Price: Rs 1,500