A deep dive into Homi Bhabha’s world of art

Homi J Bhabharsquos deep interest in the cosmopolitan aesthetics nurtured by the Bombay Progressives resulted in TIFR spending government money to buy paintings and other works of art With Nehrursquos permission he began spending one per cent of the institutersquos annual budget on purchasing works of artBhabha started the TIFR collection in the early 1950s and within a decade had amassed the most significant collection of Indian modern art anywhere in the world Most of the art collection consisted of contemporary pieces by practising artists and included women artists like Pilloo Pochkhanawala Prabha Agge and Jyoti ShahWhen Sir Maurice Wilkes who visited TIFR in 1964 remarked on the artworks displayed Bhabha told him that ldquothe government of India was one of those enlightened governments that allowed a small percentage of the total funds spent on new government buildings to be spent on artistic enrichmentrdquo Bhabha said that unlike many of his colleagues he took advantage of this provision ldquoup to the hiltrdquoBhabha shows Nehru a model of the new TIFR buildings as SS Bhatnagar Morarji Desai and JD Choksi look on A wall in the entrance hall was 45 ft long and nine feet high and Bhabha was keen that it carry a Pablo Picasso muralThe first painting acquired by TIFR was Window by GM Hazarnis in February 1952 The second was Window Light a water colour by Ara a purchase that marked the beginning of Ararsquos special relationship with the institute one which continued long after Bhabha passed away in 1966 In the 1950s Bhabha acquired works by almost all the Progressive artists from BombaymdashSouza Husain Bakre Raza Gade and Gaitonde The third piece purchased for the collection was a decorative panel by Langhammer in 1952 followed by a landscape in 1955 Langhammerrsquos portrait of von Leyden titled The Critic also found its way into the collectionOther modern Indian artists whose works were purchased for TIFR include Kattingeri Krishna Hebbar Badri Narayan Ardeshir Davierwalla Shiavax Chavda and Laxman Pai Bhabha also bought the early works of Ganesh Pyne and KG Subramanyan His patronage and informed criticism of the plastic pictorial and performing arts assumed an added dimension since he was an accomplished artist himselfAnand in his letter that he never posted due to Bhabharsquos demise said that Bhabharsquos frequent appearances in a casual nonofficial manner at the Artistrsquos Aid Centre confirmed for many of those young talents that in him they would have a discriminating patron who would talk from within the experience of the pictorial situation rather than in the generalised manner of art criticsJRD Tata and Jamshed Bhabha with B Vithalrsquos bust of Homi J Bhabha gifted to TIFR by Tata in 1967 a year after his deathBhabharsquos institutional patronage was driven by his own artistic inclinations and his desire to refine the aesthetic sensibilities of the scientists at the instituteHis patronage of the AmericanndashBritish sculptor Sir Jacob Epstein attracted much criticism from government circles In 1954 Bhabha purchased one of Epsteinrsquos bronze heads of Einstein15 for what was then considered the extravagant sum of R381872 Six months after Bhabharsquos death in January 1966 a letter from Marlborough Fine Arts Limited London was discussed at the 50th meeting of the TIFR council This letter informed the council that a bronze head of Einstein had been sold at Sothebyrsquos for pound2100 in July 1964 The institute had paid pound200 for it in 1954 It is not known what the government thought of the more than tenfold appreciationHowever Bhabha was hardly going to be affected by such criticism Apart from his own strong convictions about the importance of aesthetics to science he also had Nehru firmly by his side A wall in the entrance hall of the new TIFR building was 45 ft long and nine feet high and Bhabha wanted to cover it with a mural In keeping with his desire for excellence he set in motion an ambitious plan to invite Pablo Picasso to India to paint the mural for the institute Bhabha was interested in encouraging a ldquodifferent pedagogy through which the sensibilities of the citizenscientist could be refinedrdquo Scientists at TIFR were being ldquoenvisaged not only as leaders in an expertled world but also as connoisseurs capable of holding conversations with the worldrdquo It could also be seen as an attempt to bring together the modernity of Indian art into the modern International style building designed by Helmuth Bartsch Bhabha did not want art culture and science to be in silosIn November 1962 he wrote to JD Bernal the famous crystallographer and biologist who he had befriended during his stay in England Bernal had established Birkbeckrsquos Biomolecular Research Laboratory in two Georgian houses in Torrington Square Picasso was close to Bernal and when he came to England in November 1950 to attend a world peace conference he made a drawing on the wall of the sitting room of Bernalrsquos flat which was just above his laboratory at Birkbeck College During a dinner party held at Bernalrsquos home Picasso using pencil and crayon drew a portrait of a man and woman with wings on the wall of Bernalrsquos sitting room This was the only mural Picasso ever made in England When Bernalrsquos flat was demolished to make way for a new college building that section of the wall was removed for preservation and is now part of the Wellcome CollectionA selfportrait he made at age 17 Picture CourtesyHomi J Bhabha A Life Rupa PublicationsThis original section of the wall called Bernalrsquos Picasso is currently installed in the Tate Liverpool galleryReferring to a previous conversation on the subject in which Bhabha had asked Bernal to sound out Picasso and ascertain his interest in the project Bhabha wrote to Bernal to ask if he had met with any success Citing the foreign exchange crunch he said it would be impossible to pay him anything in foreign exchange leave aside a price appropriate for Picasso Aware of his financial limitations Bhabha offered Picasso first class return airfare a stay at the Taj and trips to places of historic interest Bhabha was obviously relying a great deal on Bernalrsquos friendship with Picasso for an affirmative answer since what he was offering was very modest and as he admitted certainly not in Picassorsquos league We do not know if Bernal replied there is no evidence on record to suggest that he didBhabha who must have realised that the chances of Picasso responding favourably were slim had already set the ball rolling for identifying a suitable artist in India In September 1962 two months before he wrote his letter to Bernal he had invited several artists from Bombay to attend a meeting to discuss the mural A telegram was also sent to Narayan Shridhar Bendre in Baroda to attend the same meetingIn October 1962 the institute invited 12 modern Indian artists to submit preliminary designs for the mural In what would be termed a lsquocall outrsquo in modern parlance NR Puthran the registrar of the institute invited the artists emphasising that the mural was intended to be a tribute to Indian art and a stimulus to the aesthetic sensibility of the many young scientists who passed through the building Puthranrsquos letter declared TIFRrsquos intention to survey a wide range of artistic possibilities which were in harmony with the aesthetic concept of the buildingThe institute had allotted R15000 for the finished mural The preliminary sketch was to be 9ft 8 in long and 2 ft wide and each artist was to receive a remuneration of R800 for it Ara Bendre Gaitonde Satish Gujral Hebbar Husain Padamsee B Prabha RD Raval Raza Baburao Sadwelkar and GM Solegaonkar were requested to submit entries In addition the names of Shanti Dave Ram Kumar and Jamini Roy formed part of a separate list in case any of those in the first list were not able to participate An advertisement was published calling for applications From the initial list of invited artists Raza Padamsee and Gaitonde did not submit entries Nine artists responded Ara Bendre Gujral Hebbar Husain B Prabha Badri Narayan Solegaonkar and RavalExcerpted with permission from Homi J Bhabha A Life by Bakhtiar K Dadabhoy Rupa Publications