Can studio pottery be called art? This issue continues to divide art lovers. Few museums and galleries of national importance or, for that matter, few important collectors have systematically acquired the works of eminent 20th century studio potters or leading Indian artists such as Mrinalini Mukherjee and A Ramachandran, to name only two. However, one notices a change in the air. Ceramics is no longer being labelled a decorative art, which holds a slightly lower position in the art hierarchy because it often produces functional objects. The first Indian triennale of ceramic art was held in Jaipur this year and its focus was on ceramic sculpture.
It is in this context that the exhibition
The arresting beauty of the forms is enhanced by the dazzling variety of glazes and surface textures. Most striking are the glazes that range from glittering turquoise to deep azure. Then there are the glowing yellow ochres, burnished golds, subdued reds, smoky greys, as well as translucent greenish-grey, crackled glazes. The luminosity of the glazes ranges from a riveting brilliance to a quiet, contemplative glow.
Enhancing them is a striking range of texturisations of the glazed surfaces. There are encrustations on the surface that evoke the coral reefs or the barnacled rockfaces at the edge of the sea. There are linear designs that remind one of the lines on the sand that receding waves leave behind. “I have lived in Mumbai all my life. So, many of my textural effects have evocations of the sea,” says Abhay.
The texturisations also have deep linear markings, crisp staccato strokes and grainy as well as smooth, gleaming surfaces. There are striations of a medley of colours. There are bursts of efflorescence on the surface achieved through a complex use of glazes and a skilful firing in the kiln.
“BR Pandit is a master of glazing,” says Naman Ahuja, art historian, curator and professor at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University. In a conversation with the father and son organised by Art Heritage, Ahuja brought out the context of the senior Pandit’s work and his community of associates, including his wife Devki and the other potters who are a part of his studio.
The story has linkages with the growth of studio pottery in India during the 20th century and with other seminal figures in the world of studio pottery such as Gurcharan Singh of Delhi Blue Pottery, SK Mirmira, a master potter from Karnataka, and Nirmala Patwardhan, one of India’s pioneering potters. Pandit’s initial training in pottery at the institutes inspired by MK Gandhi deeply influenced his world view.
In his vast studio and workshop in Mumbai, the senior Pandit makes two lines of ceramics. One has the standard pots and vases for bonsai and ikebana that are produced by the hundreds and are much in demand all over India. The other is the more exclusive line of experimental pieces, some of which are currently on display.
Pandit keeps the prices of both lines affordable. Although his work is in great demand (in 2014, he made a huge installation called Seascape at Terminal 2 of the Mumbai international airport), Ahuja asks him why he does not mark up his work. With the humility of a true artist, the 69-year-old Pandit replies, “I am a Gandhian. I would much rather see my work go into many ordinary homes.”
Although very experimental with his glazes, Pandit admits that he likes the traditional forms of the functional objects. He says that the asymmetry of some of the contemporary works is not to his taste. It is his son Abhay, a very gifted studio potter, who ventures into abstract sculptural forms. His textural experiments are quite outstanding. However, no matter how experimental he gets, he remains within the broad aesthetic style established by his father.
The art of the clay, clearly, has not just taken new turns, but also found its rightful place.
Ella Datta is an art historian and critic