MUMBAI: A private art collection is rarely shown in public, inadvertently shutting out some of the most brilliant and valued art. Of the handful of collectors who make their art accessible, the Dabriwalas are one.
The exhibition features a 1974 painting of Dave titled Sansar Dhwaj, which is among Surbhit’s favourites for its complex and layered composition. Another highlight is S H Raza’s 1965 painting titled Congo. The Dabriwla collection will also be exhibited by auction house Christie’s first exhibition dedicated to modern South Asian Art in Hong Kong, from November 18 to 29.
Titled Vyakt Avyakt (the manifest and the unmanifest), the exhibition features paintings of V S Gaitonde, Akbar Padamsee, S H Raza, G R Santosh, Jyoti Bhatt and other modernists. The paintings explore tantra, mythology, iconography and the cyclical energy of creation and destruction. The family’s collection spans five decades and three generations, beginning with the late pioneer, Rajendra Dabriwala. The exhibition at Art Mumbai will be shown under the Dabriwala Foundation of the Arts, christened this year. Vyakt Avyakt is its maiden showcase. The family, however, has lent its works to a few galleries across the world over the last five years, but before that the collection has predominantly been private. Apart from the works of more popular modernists, the exhibition at will also have works of artists such as Siavax Chavda, Sohan Qadri and Shanti Dave. It depicts the rise and fall of civilisations, and the composition is rooted in ancient script and culture. Born in Madhya Pradesh, Raza frequented the state’s rich forests. Within them, he imagined what Congo, an ecological powerhouse, looked like. What appears on canvas is a meditative work that peeks into the artist’s imagination of a land he had never visited. Titled Masterpieces of Modern South Asian Art: Highlights from the Dabriwala Collection, some of the prominent works included are Tyeb Mehta’s Untitled (Woman on Rickshaw), in which a hand-drawn rickshaw becomes a symbolic stage for an abstract female figure, reflecting the artist’s engagement with human suffering and dignity. Jodhpur by S H Raza transforms the colours and architecture of Rajasthan into a meditation on memory, place and identity. Akbar Padamsee’s Metascape portrays a contemplative space between earth, horizon and cosmos.
“A lot of artists paint in the divine state between form and formlessness, which this exhibition attempts to show,” said Vasavi Dabriwala, curator of the show and third-generation collector. “We now want to give back (to the society, art world) as a homage to the great artists we have had, and bring their genius into the public eye,” said Surbhit Dabriwala, the second-generation art collector of the family. “It’s a monumental work with an astounding visual imagery,” said Surbhit. “It prompts you to ask what survives when everything else has been stripped away, and shows the connection between the finite and the infinite, depicting celestial bodies and how they govern the rise and fall of civilisations,” added Vasavi.
