Victorian medals encrusted with diamonds, an antique oak-wood desk, a vintage hat stand with a colourful hand-stitched pheta (a turban worn in Maharashtra). An art exhibition that seeks to celebrate the artist doesn’t usually go beyond his or her works. But the one on Mahadev Vishwanath Dhurandhar (1867-1944) organised by and at Mumbai’s National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) also seeks to acquaint the viewer with the artist through the objects he used in daily life. That explains why the easel and the headdress are on display along with 238 paintings and sketches from different stages in Dhurandhar’s life.

Born in Kolhapur, Dhurandhar showed an inclination towards the arts from an early age. His father encouraged him to enrol in the Sir JJ School of Art in Mumbai, where he trained under British artist, John Griffiths. Dhurandhar’s body of work includes watercolour on paper, graphite on paper, charcoal paintings, book illustrations, commercial posters and portraits.

“He was an extremely versatile artist who experimented with various mediums,” says artist Suhas Bahulkar, curator of the exhibition, titled ‘The Romantic Realist’. “Last year, on Dhurandhar’s 150th birth centenary, I realised that his contribution to Indian art is almost forgotten. That was when the idea of this retrospective was born.”

As Bahulkar walks us from one floor to the next, you’re taken across centuries in no chronological order. You’re plunged into a history book as you see Chhatrapati Shivaji captured in vivid colours, as he heads out to the battlefield. You’re taken to more peaceful times through postcards capturing rural India, where a potter works the wheel, women bathe on the ghats and a bullock pulls a cart. You find yourself in more familiar territory with a black-and-white snapshot of Dhurandhar’s mansion in Khar, Mumbai. Incidentally, it was in this house that Bahulkar’s journey with Dhurandhar began, years after his death.

“It was the ’60’s. I had won an interschool drawing competition and the felicitation ceremony was held at this mansion. I saw his house strewn with his artwork and fell in love with him. Years later, in the ’90’s, I visited the place again. This time, the bungalow was being sold to a developer — a tall building stands there now. I was there to fetch a painting that had been placed high up on a wall. I climbed on a stool to get my hands on it, and broke my arm,” says Bahulkar.

Dhurandhar lived through an era when Mumbai in particular and India as a whole were undergoing a sea change; this was a time when gothic and Victorian structures were spread across Indian cities even as the Swadeshi movement was gaining ground. Dhurandhar’s paintings suggest that the artist, too, was straddling two worlds.

He harks us back to our roots with scenes from tribal India; a black-and-white sketch of a woman in the nude playing a sitar; a dancer wrapped in a colourful sari but caught in a kathak pose. Hindu mythology is captured in many works, notable among which is Mohini, Vishnu’s female avatar. Dhurandhar’s Mohini lacks the delicacy and aesthetics which he usually imparts to his women subjects; it almost appears as though the artist has captured Vishnu before the transformation is complete.

The concept of a changing India comes through his commercial posters: Travel advertisements released by the Railways. For instance, we see a poster — of people taking a dip in the Ganga — which was meant to entice pilgrims to journeys. He paints a modern Mumbai through the image of an ayah pushing a pram on Chowpatty; a postcard captures new buildings of the time along the waterfront, some of which are still on Marine Drive.

Dhurandhar also witnessed a change in the woman’s role in Indian society. Rani Laxmi Bai had become a legend, just a few years before he was born; the first All India Women’s Education Conference was held in Pune in 1927; the Child Marriage Restraint Act was passed in 1929. Perhaps it was the sociopolitical climate that made Dhurandhar frequently choose women as a subject. Many of the works show rural women going about household chores. They appear mundane, but look closely and you’ll notice that while their features are delicate, their stance is often bold.

Dhurandhar clearly understood the varied dynamics in an evolving British-India. To revive his legacy is to relive a piece of history.

(‘The Romantic Realist’, supported by the DAG, the Swaraj Art Archive, and the Government of India’s ministry of culture, is on view at NGMA, Mumbai, till October 13)

Kiran Mehta is a Mumbai-based journalist

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