Archive for sale

The Bengalis have celebrated their relationship with art in more ways than most, falling into a stupor at the very sight of works by Jamini Roy, Nandalal Bose or Rabindranath Tagore. Jamini Roy’s ubiquitousness and the reminder of Tagore’s Nobel are enough to engrain them on other Indian sensibilities, but if Nandalal Bose hasn’t made the same cut, it is entirely our fault. Not only have we failed to celebrate the artist responsible for illustrating The Constitution of India, our parliamentarians — and visitors to Parliament — remain ignorant of the murals painted by him and a team of artists on its walls.

 
This year, as India celebrates the sesquicentennial year of Mahatma Gandhi’s birth, by a string of coincidences it has also ended up celebrating Nandalal Bose. Not surprising considering Gandhi and Bose knew and admired each other. If Tagore was responsible for weaning Bose away from the revivalist romanticism of the Bengal School to create art that was responsive to its environment, it was Gandhi who saw in him the ability to create an identity of the nation and her people.
 
In 1937, Gandhi asked Nandalal babu to create panels, or posters, for the Congress conclave of 1938 in Haripura. Nandalal painted over 400 of these in tempera on paper, depicting ordinary people who had never before been so eulogised — potter, carpenter, ear-cleaner, dancer, musician, ironsmith, farmer, drummer, weaver. It was not an anthropological representation, but these animated, expressionistic works are among the treasures of Indian art, though they are little known to her people, or to the community of art lovers at large.

 

Now, 16 of these will get a viewing at the Venice Biennale (September 6 to November 18) at a Gandhi-themed national pavilion led by the National Gallery of Modern Art, from where these works have been sourced, alongside contemporary works and installations, curated by the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, a public-private collaboration that will make India’s presence felt at this prestigious biennale for only the second time in its 124-year-old existence. That these works are leaving India for a rare viewing is itself extraordinary — and thereby hangs a tale.
 
Nandalal Bose’s estate was gifted to his grandson, Supratik, who struck up a friendship in Harvard with John M Rosenfield, a professor of East Asian art, who urged him to find “a proper home for the collection of Nandalal’s paintings and exhibit them in America, Europe, Japan and around the world”. Supratik prepared a catalogue, photographed hundreds of his works and offered them to Indian universities and institutions, but “responses were enthusiastic but bureaucratic”. A Japanese institution offered to buy the collection. “What followed was stunning,” Supratik says. “The Indian government decided to enlist Nandalal’s art as [a] National Treasure. Hence the collection was to remain in India.” This was in the 1970s and there are nine such artists whose works are confined to India.

 
So, what of the Nandalal collection? In 1982, under a committee chaired by his former student, Indira Gandhi, Supratik was able to find a home for 6,800 of them at NGMA — the largest such endowment. But a large chunk — the “archive” — remained with him. Now, on April 11, it is to be auctioned by Pundole’s in Mumbai. Consisting of almost 5,000 works, it is probably the most important sale of its kind, constituting as it does a single lot. It will almost certainly set a record for an artist whose importance India has finally woken to. Whether it is acquired for profit or for sharing with the people of India will depend on the hand behind the winning bid. Here’s hoping Supratik’s wish that “the new owner keep the archive intact for scholars to do the research work it was intended for” finds resonance — and a fitting home.

 

Kishore Singh is a Delhi-based writer and art critic. These views are personal and do not reflect those of the organisation with which he is associated