His paintings and illustrations spoke volumes of his fiercely anti-establishment spirit. Artist Brij Mohan Anand was known for using art as a powerful medium of social and political commentary. Art lovers in the capital get a chance to see some of his finest and never seen before works 30 years after his death in an exhibition titled “Narratives for Indian Modernity: The Aesthetic of Brij Mohan Anand”. The show captures his journey as an artist and how he used art as a tool to voice social injustice.
The exhibition features 35 sketches, 14 scratchboards, three scratchboard sketches, five ink drawings, six Red Cross posters, 23 book covers and five oil-on-canvas paintings by this maverick artist. The 11-day long show also included the release of a seminal book on Left-leaning B.M. Anand, who was a trenchant critic of both Western imperialism and Indian militarism. Dr Alka Pande, curator of the show, says, “The book and exhibition are the result of an accidental discovery of a massive tranche of lost works from the attic of Anand’s West Delhi home by Neeraj Gulati, founder of BM Anand Foundation, which is organising the event.”
His works range from issues like neo-colonial conflicts, cultural conflicts of the Cold War and Vietnam War to India’s nuclear power. She avers, “I have chosen from his wide range of almost 1,500 works that belongs to the foundation. They belong to almost every genre of his artistic practice. Thematically presented, we have tried to show the magnificence of his work from starkly modernist figure compositions to apocalyptic landscapes that reflect his defiant and politically subversive stance.”
Working as an illustrator and commercial artist, he was associated with several publishing houses and taught art to students to supplement his income. “The exhibit and accompanying monograph aim to share the distinctive vision and perspective of an artist who witnessed India's journey towards modernity,-" shares Alka.
In addition to exploring Anand’s life and biography, the monograph provides a critical evaluation of the iconography and political context to a series of Cold War era scratchboards undertaken by Anand between the early 1950s through to the early 1980s. Alka points out, “His distinctive aesthetic was equally grounded in a profound belief in the ability of ordinary men and women to fashion their own lives and futures. The disciplinarian father of four was known for his dexterity and precision. He made no attempt to sell his paintings; instead believed that art was a powerful medium of social and political commentary that can be used as a voice of dissent and a tool for advancing social justice.”
His life and aesthetic intersected with some of the foundational events which defined and shaped modern Indian consciousness. He died of cardiovascular complications at the age of 58. “Artists like Anand are national treasures and the government should take more initiative to archive and showcase their works to a larger audience.”
