The art behind the artist

At the ongoing exhibition at Max Mueller Bhavan one can encounter the various works of the renaissance man of India, Dashrath Patel, put together by his mentee Pinakin Patel.

Even if one wasn’t an art enthusiast, the colours and minimalism in the frames of designer- sculptor Dashrath Patel will make you want to stare at them intently. Not only was he a renowned sculptor, but also an all round artist, dabbling effortlessly in ceramics, photography and graphic designing. Being the recipient of India’s first Padma Shri for Design, Dashrath is referred to as the Independent India’s renaissance man.

While his unusual skill of understanding space, light, form, colour, texture and their inter connectivity enabled him to move freely from one art form to another,  it was this lucidity of the great artist, that pushed Pinakin Patel, his mentee, to call the exhibition The Unknown Legend—Dashrath Patel. “I called the show The Unknown Legend because he did not stay in any one discipline long enough to become a legend, when actually, he had mastered that discipline thoroughly,” he smiles.

A contemporary of Tyeb Mehta, M.F. Hussain and V. S. Gaitonde, Dashrath didn’t quite like putting his work on display, it is his friend and mentee Pinakin who has put together an exhibition of design objects, photographs, paintings, collages and prints by his mentor.

“He was not against exhibitions. He only refrained from too much commercial exposure. As he did not wanted to get iconified and frozen into any one genre,” shares Pinakin.

Talking about his mentor and his oeuvre, the architect-designer refers to him as Independent India’s renaissance man. “He was a multidisciplinary in almost all  fields related to art and design. Besides his skills and talents, he had a very tactile earthy connection with life that made him share his insights with others in the simplest ways,” narrates Pinakin.

But after having worked with Henri Cartier-Bresson, who introduced him to photography, collaborating with American designer Charles Eames, artist Harindranath Chattopadhyay, dancer Chandralekha and serving 20 years as one of the founding members of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad, during the last decade of his life, Dashrath largely worked from Alibagh. Now, the same island houses the Dashrath Patel Museum.

For the exhibition, Pinakin picked some of his work from the museum and a few from private collectors, who have illustrated the Padma Shri as a legendary figure. About the designer’s work done in the in late 40s in Ahmedabad and of the landscapes of Madras, Paris and Bombay, the mentee says, “What started as a student’s imitative approach for inspiration, soon became a strong impressionist body of work that is unparalled by any other artists of his time. Soon his education at Ecole Beaux Arts and thereafter his stint at Bhulabhai Desai Studio Mumbai brought in modernist abstractions on canvas.”

From the 1960s to 1980s, for every trade fair or exhibition where India was to be represented, Dashrath Patel’s finesse led him to innovate multiple screen projections for the India Pavillion, New York World Fair. According to Pinakin, it was one of those works of Dashrath that defied the constraints of creativity.

“The circular multi-screen projection at the India Pavillion in the 1967 Montreal World Fair and the 10,000 sq ft Gandhi Exhibition space where he designed a tensile roof without any columns were both first in their genre and path breaking,” he recalls.

He went on to design all the major exhibitions on the arts, crafts and public figures like Gandhi and Nehru at that time. “He shared great rapport with then Prime Ministers Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. While he designed for several exhibitions for the government, it  in turn in a way was establishing him,” he adds.

Now, as a major chunk of his work remains on display in Alibaug, Pinakin’s plans to take his mentor’s art beyond the Alibaug museum, still remains unfulfilled. “In the past, Sir Nicholas Andrew Serota of the Tate Museums and Chris Dercon from Tate Modern were very keen on taking Dasrath abroad. Unfortunately that didn’t materialise but with their constant support, it may just happen in the future,” he concludes.

The Unknown Legend: Dashrath Patel, Ongoing till January 31, 11 am to 7 pm, Goethe-Institut Max Mueller Bhavan, Kala Ghoda