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| Inside the treasury | | The Birla Academy of Art and Culture shows its wealth of Indian and European art for the very first time |
| Romain Maitra / Jan 22, 2012, 00:26 IST |
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The Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata, which turns 45 this January, is celebrating the occasion with a huge exhibition of a few of the artworks painstakingly collected by Basant Kumar and Sarala Birla, the couple who founded this institution, over a lifetime.
Works collected over 60 years are on display for the first time ever on the four floors of this 11-storey building. The Academy overlooks the vast waterbed of Rabindra Sarobar.
What began in the 1940s as a humble hobby gained momentum over 10 years, to become a gigantic collection that eventually needed to be housed in its own building. “In the beginning, we were buying mostly Western art without realising that Indian art is unparalleled in excellence and that first we have to discover art from India before we go any further,” says Sarala Birla who is also the chairperson of the academy. “So, from the late 1940s we turned our attention to buying mostly Indian art. Those days, pieces of art were cheap and easily obtainable, unlike today. For example, once a month we used to visit Jamini Roy and I recall that once we bought four of his paintings for 500 rupees.”
This exhibition is, however, only a part of the entire collection which is not available for the viewing of all and sundry. The rest of the works are stacked in closed-door rooms at the Academy.
Titled “Odyssey — A Journey into Time with the Collection”, this sprawling show has ancient, medieval, modern and contemporary Indian paintings and sculptures as well as a sizeable collection of international art, apart from antiques, rare manuscripts, and historic letters.
The ancient and medieval art collection includes sculptures, miniature paintings, textiles and manuscripts. “The academy has a huge collection of stone and metal sculptures from various parts of India that span from the 2nd century BCE to the 17th century CE. While different kinds of stone were used — sandstone, basalt, granite, marble, schist, chlorite and so on — some of these sculptures were conceived with pre-classical mannerisms, while others are in classical idiom or with medieval traits,” says T K Biswas, the curator of this section and director of the Academy. He points to the figure of a deity from the classical period with Saivaite features, like the third eye on the forehead and matted locks stylistically arranged with an ornamental tiara to hold them firmly in place.
The collection of terracottas includes those from the Maurya, Sunga, Kushana, Gupta and post-Gupta periods. “With the growth of societies, the demand for terracotta augmented beyond domestic needs. The clay modellers were in demand for institutional religious cults, for votive offerings, for decorating architecture, for children’s toys and so on,” says Biswas.
The Indian miniature paintings section includes Persian, Mughal, Rajasthani and Pahari miniatures, including Jain manuscripts of western India.
Besides Biswas, the exhibition has other two curators — Nanak Ganguly and Shaheen Merali.
There is, however, no classification of the works in the modern and contemporary Indian art section curated by Ganguly, who also edited the copiously illustrated exhibition catalogue. Further, while the Bengal school collection, and the Tagores, are relatively rich, the representation of artists of the “Calcutta Group” (which initiated the first international modern art movement in the country as a reaction to the Bengal school) is remarkably lean.
But visitors would be delighted to find a wide range of other Indian artists of the 20th century and the more recent ones — from Amrita Sher-Gil, Bhabesh Sanyal, N S Bendre, Piragi Sagara, M F Husain, Tyeb Mehta and Krishna Reddy to Rabin Mondal, Shanu Lahiri, Ganesh Haloi, Achuthan Kudallur and many more.
Curated by Shaheen Merali and divided into three categories, the International Art section exhibits a part of the collection of this genre, said to have evolved in an eclectic fashion between the 1960s and 1980s. The abstract paintings of André Masson, Franz Kupka, M R Dartel, Ben Cunningham, Raymond Héndler, Maurice Golubov, Ilya Bolotowsky, Anthony
Krauss, Henry C Pearson, Murray Israel and so on meaningfully share space in the room with abstract sculptures by Giorgio de Giorgi, Sorel Etrog, Ibram Lassaw, Jacque Besner, Bernard Rosenthal and Sofu Teshigahara.
A remarkable bronze piece that looks like a big clod of common clay is also with this group of sculptures. Titled Homage to Bernini and created by Louise Bourgeois, this is very unlike the better-known works of this legendary sculptor.
The adjoining room is adorned with works by a range of artists, from Auguste Rodin (a set of 10 lithographs, Dix Dessins choisis, 1904) to Bangladeshi artist Iqbal Ahmad Tapu.
The collection is best characterised as “eclectic”, where volume trumps selectiveness. One comes away with the feeling that, while wide-ranging taste is apparent in the collection, the founding couple bought whatever they could lay their hands on.
“ODYSSEY” is at the Birla Academy of Art and Culture, Kolkata, till February 12; 3-8 pm (closed on January 26, January 28 and Mondays)
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