We explore the avant-garde Progressive Art Group as veteran art collector Kekoo Gandhy unearths its history

Many art veterans believe that the formation of the ‘Progressive Art Group’ is one of the most significant moments in the history of Indian art. The group boasts of people including MF Husain, SH Raza, KH Ara, FN Souza and other masters. The group, when it came into existence, grabbed eyeballs in the art circuits all over the globe. It’s interesting to trace back the birth of this group influenced by an Austrain artist Walter Langhammer.

Art veteran Kekoo Gandhy narrates the story: “Walter Langhammer from Austria came to India during the World War II. He was a contemporary of the famous painter Oskar Kokoschka, who was professor of the Academy in Vienna in the 1930s. A Parsi girl named Silloo Vakil from Mumbai who was Langhammer’s student would invite him over to India and he would dismiss her invitation by saying “Ja, ja.”

According to Kekoo when Hitler invaded Austria, Walter was forced to leave Austria and he wrote to Vakil, expressing his desire to come to India and he took up a job as the art director of a leading publication in 1936.

Read the rest of this entry »

Katayun Saklat, the septuagenarian Parsee artist from Calcutta, was here as an organiser of Art in Industry painting workshop held at the Centre for Excellence.

The co-owner of art gallery in Calcutta, Gallery K2, and the owner of another art gallery named after her, Gallery Katayun, shares how she became a stained glass artist. Born to parents, who were painters, her taking up art at a tender age was all but natural. She went to JJ College of Art in Mumbai to learn commercial art after which she went to do masters in fine arts from an art college in Mumbai.

The turning point in her life came in the form of a three-year trip to London to master the art of anatomy drawing from Patrick Reyntiens, a noted medieval stained glass painter in the UK. “Being under the tutelage of creative minds gave me the opportunity to learn quality art,” she said.

But once she returned from London she could not find the kind of stained glass on which she painted so far.

“Then I started using fabric instead of glass in fabric in the absence of the required material. In a way, I was forced to imagine fabric to be my chosen medium,” added Katayun.

Bright colours and anatomy is her forte and she earned a lot of appreciation doing what she does best.

Katayun has a dream project in her mind. “It would be an art museum which would house pieces on the theme of seven major religions of the world, including Judaism, Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity and Sikhism, necessarily in that order,” she says.

Original article here

FORGET about GI Jane, Xena: Warrior Princess and Wonder Woman. Cinema’s first ass-kicking chick was a blonde-haired, blue-eyed Australian who spoke Hindi as she tussled with lions and performed live fight scenes on top of moving trains.

In 1935 Mary Evans made her cinematic debut as Fearless Nadia in Hunterwali (the lady with the whip), going on to appear in more than 50 Bollywood films.

“She did all her own stunts without harnesses or crash mats. The name Fearless Nadia was very apt,” said Chris Murphy, who plays Evans in Fearless N, a play about the stuntwoman’s extraordinary life.

Director Carlos Gomes says Evans became a symbol for India’s independence and a feminist icon.

Evans was born in Perth in 1908 but spent her childhood in colonial India after her British Army father moved the family to Bombay. After he died in World War I, Evans went to live with relatives in the mountains near the Khyber Pass, where she learnt to hunt and shoot.

Little is known of Evans’s early life but she is rumoured to have given birth to an illegitimate son, who Noelle Janaczewska, the writer of Fearless N, believes might be living in Sydney.

Evans was performing in Indian vaudeville and circus when she was spotted by filmmakers J.B.H. and Homi Wadia, who turned her into a sword-fighting, whip-cracking heroine pursuing a progressive social agenda.

Evans and Homi fell in love but, after his mother forbid him from marrying outside their Parsee community, the couple conducted a secret affair for 20 years.

They eventually married in their early-50s after the death of Homi’s mother and became racehorse breeders in Mumbai. She died in 1996 aged 88.

PATNA: When it comes to setting standards in theatre, every Bihari Hindi theatre artist or director invokes the lessons learnt at the National School of Drama (NSD), New Delhi. Ironically, contemporary practitioners of Bihari theatre have reservations about NSD performing plays based on Parsi theatre tradition.

Why and how has it happened? “To say the least, the attitude of every Hindi language critic and scholar towards Parsi theatre has been reprehensible,” said senior theatre artist Ajatshatru, adding: “They consider Parsi theatre tradition ‘heya’ and ‘heen’ (low and demeaning). This attitude of the Hindi critics destroyed the Parsi theatre tradition in Bihar.”

Speaking about the contemporary Bihari theatre scene, he said: “Today, the Bihari theatre scene is barren. There isn’t much creativity involved. They talk about ‘nukkad’ theatre. What creativity is that? Overall, there is no discipline, no dedication, no punctuality and no rehearsals,” Ajatshatru said.

The local playwright, actor and director Suman Kumar picked up the gauntlet. He referred to the experimentation and improvisation being done on the Patna theatre scene, which had led to resurgent staging of modern plays, frequent performance of short stories in the Proscenium theatre, sophisticated presentation of plays from the folk theatre tradition and even the nukkad plays, since the late 1970s. “I can only say that Ajatshatru is not aware of it. Nor has he seen perfectly crafted street plays,” Suman said.

Probably, this — a fitting debate on the Parsi theatre tradition and what followed in Hindi language in Bihar thereafter — was what the organisers of Magadh Artists had planned while celebrating its 55th foundation day here on Sunday. The topic of the seminar was: ‘Parsi natak aur adhunik Hindi natak’.

The exhilarating part of the seminar was that the speakers confined themselves to their own contribution to building the Bihari theatre tradition rather than indulging in meaningless talk about what was happening in Delhi, Mumbai or other metros. The other participants were doyens of Parsi theatre tradition in Bihar, Chaturbhuj and Akhileshwar Prasad Sinha, while Vijay Amaresh, Paresh Sinha, Navneet Sharma and Madhukar Singh represented the later Hindi theatre tradition.

Curiously, every speaker pointed that the Parsi theatre style of Chaturbhuj (now 80) had inspired him to practice theatre activities. They called him “Gurudeo”. Chaturbhuj had started his career in theatre around World War II(1945). In due course, having founded his group Magadh Artists in 1952, he emerged as an institution: actor, director, playwright (specialising in historical and mythological dramas) and worker.

Significantly, the frequent complaint of the modernist actors and directors was that “we neither have good plays to perform nor encouraging audience.”

This distinguished those belonging to the Parsi theatre tradition from them. For, they wrote their plays, gained perfection and audience, and showed commitment.

Original article here

A Parsi who didn’t know Urdu, Penaz Masani went on to carve a niche for herself in the male-dominated ghazal domain. The singer talks about her over 25-year-old musical journey

For ghazal lovers, there is some good news as Penaz Masani’s new ghazal album called “Penaz: A Live Story” is to be launched soon. The two CD albums contain some of the best ghazals in Urdu, with compositions from Mirza Ghalib to Shakeel Badayuni and Nida Fazli.

According to Penaz, the soon-to-be-launched album has 20 ghazals rendered at different live concerts in India and abroad. “The album is special for me because it has all my favourite ghazals,” says Penaz, who was in Ahmedabad recently for an interactive session with children at Visamo Kids Foundation on Tuesday.

Read the rest of this entry »

Jimmy Engineer, a Karachi-based artist, has launched prints of his selected paintings. The set includes about two dozen prints of his selected work.

The prints include Jimmy Engineer’s artistic interpretation of great thinker and poet Allama Muhammad Iqbal’s epic poem “Javed Nama”.

Commenting on the endeavour, he said, “By painting this major work I have paid my tribute to Allama Muhammad Iqbal, who in his lifetime had desired that some artist should interpret the Javed Nama verses on canvas.”

Jimmy Engineer will arrive in Lahore on April 21 to tell the media and art enthusiasts about the prints. He is likely to finalise arrangements for a Tableau Competition for physically-challenged children at the Alhamra Art Centre on April 24.

His work included historical, philosophical, landscapes, moods, seascapes, architectural and cultural paintings. They also included abstract art, figures work, calligraphic paintings addressing the theme of war and terrorism.

Read the rest of this entry »

Iranian director and actor Qotbeddin Sadeqi plans to stage “The Memoirs of Zarir” at the Chaharsu Hall of Tehran’s City Theater Complex in the near future.

His troupe, consisting of Mikaiil Shahrestani, Amir-Yal Arjomand, Ashkan Jenabi, and several other artists, is currently rehearsing the play, which is written by Sadeqi and based on an ancient Iranian story from the book “The Memoirs of Zarir”. This story is believed to have been one of the sources which inspired Ferdowsi, the author of the epic masterpiece Shahnameh.

The story relates the ancient religious wars of the time of Zarathustra, and recounts the heroic deeds of a champion named Zarir, whom Ferdowsi also mentions but who is otherwise unknown.

Sadeqi has not mentioned exact dates for the performances but has said that they will begin after renovation of the City Theater Complex is completed.

Original article here

The opening of Asia Society’s glinting and glowing show of pre-Islamic art from Iran turned into something of a cliffhanger late last week when dozens of objects coming from Paris were held up by customs at Kennedy International Airport.

The objects — ancient silver dishes, carved document seals and silk textiles — all belong to French museums, including the Louvre, and have for generations. But the United States’ longstanding embargo on Iranian imports stipulates that any art objects of Iranian origin, no matter how long they have been elsewhere, can enter this country only with a permit from Washington. Even though Asia Society had such a permit, the art stayed in an airport hangar until the 11th hour, and then was rushed into Manhattan.

As it is, “Glass, Gilding and Grand Design: Art of Sasanian Iran (224-642 A.D.),” is a radical reduction of a much larger exhibition from the Musée Cernuschi in Paris that included loans from Iranian museums impossible to bring to the United States. But with about 70 pieces, the New York version is still substantial. And even if it weren’t, we would have to take notice: it is one of the only major exhibitions of Sasanian art in this part of the world in more than 30 years. And it arrives, coincidentally, just as the Bush administration has sharpened its focus on Iran’s role in war-ravaged Iraq.

Read the rest of this entry »

“People trust Air India to carry those nearest and dearest to them, even when they themselves might fly on another airline!” Recognising from carriers like Singapore Airlines how valuable a differentiator service could be, the carrier will now focus on it. From its grandiloquent old proposition of ‘Your Palace in the Sky’ it is now moving towards ‘The Tradition of Warmth.’ “That’s why we reduced the emphasis on the jharokas, although they were beautiful,” says Mr Malhotra. “They really belong to the Palace tradition rather the new one.”

But what will stand out, especially on the tarmac, is the Centaur. It’s a curious apotheosis for a symbol that AI has been ambivalent about in the past. It goes back a long way, and just like the new livery, was originally linked to a new aircraft delivery. These were of the Lockheed L-749 Constellations in 1948, the first long-haul planes that would allow the airline to be truly global, and to mark that, JRD Tata, founder and chairman of AI, personally chose the Centaur as the one zodiac constellation that most symbolised dynamism and speed. (An intriguing rumour suggests he may have been influenced by its vague resemblance to a farohar, the Zoroastrian winged man symbol that represents a guardian spirit).

Since 1948 also marked the change from Tata Airlines to Air-India, with the airline getting the status of India’s national carrier, the Centaur automatically became identified with the new corporation. It was under the Centaur, and the airline’s Maharajah mascot, that AI flew its glory days in the 1950s and ‘60s.

Entire article here