Page 39 - Studio International - October1968

hoped, for the usual economic reasons, that I would become an satisfy my need for expression and became, instead, mechanical. I
engineer, but this was not to be. began then, carefully, to let lines and shapes suggest themselves.
By insistent request I started at Delhi Polytechnic Art School when Those effects might be described as an attempt at a crystallization
I was sixteen. There, through some bad reproductions, I had my of forms that are significant and symbolic, beginning at pre-history
first taste of Rembrandt. After him came Van Gogh, Gauguin, and and continuing on right through to our times.
many others, and for a time I saturated myself in Soutine. Reality, I found, could not be grasped as a whole.
All the while I painted and painted, straightforward, competent Quite suddenly, in November of that same year and after three long
landscapes, going back to my Simla Hills for inspiration, always in years of 'hibernation', I knew that I had at last succeeded, I had
the European tradition, now and then experimenting with palette managed to break down, as it were, barriers of expression and com-
knife and other techniques. Material was costly, and sometimes my munication. This was a purely personal thing but of immense
father would baulk at paying any more money for paints, but significance to me. In the great flush of this new freedom, this
fortunately on these occasions my mother came to the rescue — exhilaration, the sense of having been liberated from media and tech-
secretively, of course. nique, the drawings began to pour out. Each drawing, as each
I graduated from there in 1952 and then went through a rapid painting, had a very definite purpose, each following one a continua-
period of success, during which I earned the distinction of becoming tion of that same purpose. It was difficult to know when or where to
the first painter to sell to the then newly-established Museum of stop, when not to `over-do'—a much more difficult facility than to
Modern Art in New Delhi. I felt I had arrived — in India at least, know where to begin. This is something that, I feel, applies to all
though my expenses and outlay far exceeded my success. artists.
Early in 1956 I came to England, young yet eager to learn, and As I painted, I found shapes thrusting upwards like plants or
managed to get an apartment in a quiet part of North London. mushrooms, shapes that virtually exploded into life. This convulsive
There, each day, I laboured through the daylight hours, painting element stimulated and excited me, and more drawings and paint-
after painting, drawing after drawing, constantly concealing the ings magically materialized.
nature of my occupation from the landlady lest she be disturbed My painting became a discovery of my Indian nature and tempera-
about 'having a painter in the house'. ment, and without knowing it I drew more and more on Indian
Then, like most Indian and other 'colonial' painters, I had my images. For example, English churches and their Gothic spires
first London show at the Commonwealth Institute (then the Im- reminded me of Hindu temples of the type you find at Khajuraho in
perial Institute) and, once again, enjoyed some success. Central India.
In 1958 my work began to dissatisfy me, eventually coming to a Upon their walls are sculptured various Hindu gods, girls dancing,
complete standstill for many frustrating months, eight in fact. I was and lovers proclaiming the most noble and exalted experiences of
stale; landscapes, copying scenery, painting from life—all failed to men and women. At many times they have been thought of as sym-

Above left Daruling orchard 1961, watercolour, 13 x 24 in.
Coll : Sir Ronald Penrose, London

Left Whirling spheres 1961, coloured inks and watercolour, 19 x 24 in.
Coll : Mr and Mrs Harold Wit, New York

Above Seven moons 1961, oil on board, 48 x 72 in.
Coll : Mr and Mrs W. G. Archer, London