An exhibition on Martand Singh, India's textile man, opens today in Delhi

Martand Singh was the much-loved master of India’s textile world in the 1980s and continued to be respected for his contribution to its growth, his inspiring vision that motivated many younger associates and his impeccable design aesthetic. He passed away in 2017. The Ministry of Textiles and the Devi Art Foundation are mounting a much-needed tribute to his work by exhibiting some of his textile creations at the National Handicrafts and Handlooms Museum in New Delhi. The exhibition, titled “A Search in Five Directions”, will run till March 31, 2018. 

Mapu, as his friends knew him, was modest and gracious, a man who never boasted of his projects. His works, which were created in the best tradition of collaborative creativity, spoke of his profound understanding of India’s traditional sensibilities. We need to remember that, at the time he worked, there was no internet to search for references or inspiration, “mood boards” were a non-existent part of an uncreated vocabulary, there were no professional textile design institutions, and even books with deep scholarship on the variety of skills and techniques in India were hard to find. The human connection between the designer visionary and the exquisite latent skills available with textile practitioners across many disciplines had to combine perfectly to form their own chemistry. This happened with the Vishwakarma Project.

Mapu and a variety of master weavers, blockmakers, block-printers, bandhni workers and painted textile artists, created an array of pieces that brought out the best collection of designs, motifs, patterns and layouts of the past and combined them with bold experiments into a vast contemporary space based on flights of their combined imagination. Old hand skills were rejuvenated.

Some of us went to the opening of the original Vishwakarma Exhibition (1982) and have never forgotten its wonderful extravagance. The works demonstrated the extent to which India’s old textiles and current aesthetics were both uniquely Indian and timeless. I also have before me my copy of the publication, titled The Master Weavers, which accompanied the opening of the exhibition. The Foreword recalls the remarkable collaboration that Pupul Jayakar, with her immense clout in the government, unleashed to link government ministries, Weavers’ Service Centres, private and public institutions, master artisans, private collectors, professionals and textile experts from across the country, in an exhilarating nationalistic exercise that celebrated India’s past and future possibilities in the universal world of textiles.

An original Vishwakarma sari from Jaitly’s personal collection

The range of artistic textile creators includes Vadilal Lakhmanbhai of Ahmedabad who made ritual textiles for the goddess cult, now recognisable by its traditional name, Mata-ni-Pachedi. Blockmaker Sardar Husain still lives and practises his art in Pilkhuwa, UP. Haji Moinuddin of Varanasi, maker of gyasar and brocade, and the Salvi family, makers of the famed Patan patola, were all part of this memorable show. Interviews with them show their thought processes and deep involvement in their art form. These saris brought about a renewal in the production and wearing of saris and an appreciation for this elegant draped garment. It led to Rta Kapur Chisti’s book, Saris: Tradition and Beyond, documenting the patterns and drapes of saris across India. Textile artists felt a renewed sense of pride in their work and started making samplers, documenting their range of work. The process of choosing practitioners for National Awards acquired a new standard of excellence that encouraged many aspirants to improve and innovate.

A Bomkai from Chhattisgarh, from Jaitly’s personal collection

The textiles from Vishwakarma are being curated from amongst the original collection and displayed at the 2018 exhibition. They are bound to remind us of a time when the renaissance of Indian textile skills made us reconnect with our heritage after centuries of colonisation and the destruction of many skills under British rule. It made us feel encouraged that nothing had been truly lost, and that future possibilities were immense. The retrospective on show in New Delhi comes at a time when our minds and skills need invigorating beyond the world of fashion designers or trade fairs, synthetic substitutes and digital abstracts. It will possibly show us that handwork of a high level can survive amidst transitions of society from mechanisation and automation, to digital technology, and perhaps now travelling towards a world of artificial intelligence. It clearly demonstrates that beauty which emerges from the human mind and the hand, carrying with it the collective knowledge of a great civilisation can never be overtaken by any kind of artificial mechanisms.

Martand Singh’s remarkable contribution to our vocabulary of textile art should inspire designers, aesthetes and craftspersons alike to begin work on yet another chapter that adds to our national pride.