If Jehangir Ardeshir Sabavala were to be alive, he would turn 100 this year. When the stylish, delicately flamboyant painter passed away on September 2, 2011, he was 89. Coincidentally, M F Husain who had helped Sabavala mount his first exhibition way back in 1953 at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, Mumbai, also died in 2011.
In a long and distinguished career, the quiet Parsi painter came to be known for his tranquil and ethereal cubist landscapes which bore copious swathes of soothing colours and gentle moods. His meticulously planned and executed paintings were distinguished by mysterious horizons, majestically rising hills, open skies, and simmering waterbodies. When human figures crept in, they did so in the form of prophets, pilgrims in exile, and mysteriously draped women.
Silent pilgrim
Sabavala saw himself as ‘a pilgrim, moving towards unknown vistas’. He admired and absorbed several artistic streams but strove to find an independent path. “My art, a mixture of academic, impressionist and cubist texture, form and colour, acquired a distinct style in the mid-1960s,” he once reminisced. “And with each step, I have evolved a new experience. But if I look back, I find I have carried all the elements forward.” In another interview, he revealed how in the 1970s, he changed tracks. “That’s when I moved from my cubist phase. There is a diaphanous, atmospheric quality to the works done then. You will see shafts of light in my paintings.” Not much later, he became less interested in the mere juxtaposition of planes, and search for rare colours. “It is the intangible which is now my goal. Space and light, and an element of mystery begin to permeate my canvasses.”
Sabavala’s paintings received popular and critical admiration in his lifetime. They were praised for their unique glow and luminescence; the interplay of light and shadow; their mastery of depth, perspective, and colour; and above all, for their pregnant silences. “Sabavala has achieved the unity of the external with his internal world,” observed poet and painter Dilip Chitre. “Subtleties of tonal transitions and colour relationships are his forte; and scale, not size, is his preoccupation.”
Inspired by Sabavala’s imagery, Adil Jussawalla penned an evocative poem with a tinge of melancholy: “You paint a bay, a body of sand. / But I see a friend held to a wound, / dead in its tide. /… I watch from a place I’d bring myself to name / after the omens fugitives steered by: / odd lights, abnormal birds, that rock / reared into the sky which once slept safe / in an ignorant part of the sea.”
Sabavala studied at the Sir JJ School of Arts in Mumbai, among others and had more than 30 solo shows in India and abroad. The first Indian painter to feature in the Venice Biennale (1954), he received, among other accolades, the Padma Shri in 1977, and the Lalit Kala Ratna in 2007.
His paintings attracted discerning collectors and commanded high prices, particularly after his death. In September 2014, ‘The Flight into Egypt I’ went under the hammer for Rs three crore. In 2015, his ‘Casuarina Line’ sold for Rs 4.8 crore. Five years later, ‘The Peasants’ got a whopping USD 966,000 at Christie’s. Late last year, his ‘The Embarkation’ sold for USD 1.59 million, more than five times the low estimate, establishing yet another auction record for the artist.
Braving criticism
Sabavala had his share of critics too. Some peers accused him of being indifferent to the social upheavals of the times and failing to give shape to public and political themes. Due to his long stint outside the country, some even alleged that he was more of a foreigner than an Indian in thought, appearance, and art. On one occasion, Husain went on to name Bengali artist Ganesh Pyne as one of the finest painters of his time, while picking Sabavala to head a list of India’s worst! It may be interesting to follow Sabavala’s artistic journey through the writings of noted critic Richard Bartholomew (1926-85) who surveyed and commented on his work over a long period. While reviewing his Delhi exhibition in 1962, Bartholomew observed that the fragmented, faceted manner of delineating the forms in paint added to the general confusion. “Sabavala is earnest,” he wrote, “but his art is a bore.” In December 1966, the same critic complained that Sabavala’s compositions resembled over-exposed transparencies in which the images suffer from ‘camera shake’ and bad focus. “To paint these sensuous-abstract images would require a transmuting power far beyond Sabavala’s. He should not try.” Six years later, Bartholomew’s views were slowly changing. “There is a gentleness about Sabavala’s paintings which is also characteristic of the man,” he commented. “This is not a sign of weakness but is a quality of the sincere voice. Sensationalism is not Sabavala’s forte. Sensitivity is. And in this, he is gaining ground.”
By 1976, the carping critic had turned into an unabashed admirer of the artist and his art. “There are artists who are precocious, those who are frigid, and those who are licentious and facile. Jehangir is none of these. He has worked hard, thoroughly, and steadily, and has nurtured his vision meticulously with a methodology of his own…This is the repertoire of the romantic painter who is also committed. There is the relevance of distance, time, perspective, and mood. And notwithstanding the element of the dream, there is an earnestness (and an acceptance of limits) in Jehangir’s work which is foursquare and vital. Foursquare because each painting is built solidly, facet by facet, and tone on tone, though, the parts hold together and the totality is live and refreshing…This is the work of a significant artist who has grown and evolved intrinsically these 20 years.”