You just cannot separate art and Harsh Goenka, chairman of the Rs 6,000 crore RPG group. He owns one of the best collections of private art in the country.
He has such a great eye for art that he is a regular fixture at many an art exhibition.
Goenka has so many paintings that he has lost count. They occupy pride of place in his homes, offices, corridors and conference rooms.
"My home and offices are my art gallery. There won't be a single room where there are no paintings exhibited," he says.
In fact, entering his group's Mumbai headquarters at Ceat Mahal, the first thing that catches your eye is a painting.
The seven-storeyed building is littered with paintings and sculptures of all hues. And the signatures range from those of star personalities to budding artists.
Goenka has been patronising art for more than two decades. It all began in 1983 when he moved to Mumbai.
A friend-cum-interior designer introduced him to the world of art. Any guesses at who it could be?
A painter herself, she is the better half of the head of a diversified engineering to soaps to tea group.
So what began as just curiosity soon developed into a passion. And Goenka was hooked. His first buy was a mother Teresa painting done by artist M F Hussain.
But Goenka says that his choice of paintings has changed over the years. "Today, I don't like what I might have liked 10 years ago," he says.
With such a huge collection, he feels the need to upgrade it. "I may look at selling some of my collections in the future," he says.
But how does he pick a painting? "I look for emotional strings, colours, subject, among others, in a painting," says Goenka. Yes, he prefers Indian artists to international ones.
Ask him for his favourite, and he reels out a list. Laxman Shrestha, Atul Dodiya, Bikash Bhattacharjee, Baiju Parthan, Sunil Padwal, Anandajit Ray and sculptor Karl Antao are close to his heart.
One of his favourite is an Akbar Padamsee shaded painting which overlooks his seat in his cabin.
"The landscape painting is the one I see a lot as it is right in front of my eyes," he says.
With vivid colours, it is a mirror image of a painting joined at the centre. He also likes the Lord Krishna work done by Arup Das.
He claims that the painting has "Ram" written in small fonts all over. "These small elements make the painting quite interesting," he says.
