While Ebrahim Alkazi’s reputation as a director of ground-breaking plays is well-documented, his brush with paintings is something that has been a well-kept secret until now, says Uma Nair
Long before the art world woke up to my works, it was Ebrahim Alkazi who bought my Kali (1989),” Tyeb Mehta told me in 2005. “Alkazi was a brilliant artist too, he understood Western art genres and had done many works. I wonder where they are? Maybe, somewhere in a bundle.”
Little does Rahab Allana, his daughter, know that this was what Tyeb had spoken so many years ago. At Shridharani and Art Heritage in Triveni Alkazi’s early works done more than 60 years ago come alive in Opening Lines curated by Ranjit Hoskote. And as Allana says, she found 99 works on paper carefully knotted in a bundle.
Alkazi and Souza
In 1996 he stunned Delhi with a solo showing of Francis Newton Souza his room mate and friend from his London days. When Souza came to Delhi during the winter in the 1990’s he would stay at Yatri Niwas and dining with Alkazi was the norm.The magnificent opus of Souza’s works in 1996, which rendered the exhibition church-like and therefore allowed for the unfolding of both the sacred and its profanation, was unforgettable.
In the nation and the city of Delhi, Alkazi the writer, the thinker, the play wright the collector was friend, gallerist and peer to Indian artists like Souza, Tyeb Mehta, K G Subramanyan and many more. At Shridharani and Art Heritage his daughter Amal Allana has created an oasis of drawings sculptures and paintings with a neat narrative strung together.
Multiple mediums
Alkazi was deft in his choice of mediums, deeper in his understanding of cubist, abstract, realist modes of translating the human figure and the face and also trying his hand at sculptures. Carbon-tracing, frottage or textural rubbing, charcoal, inks, washes, printer’s ink, graphite, pastels, poster paints — this is a spread that educates informs and states that Alkazi is one of India’s greatest collectors because he knew his art. The only oil-on-canvas in the exhibition, is a magnificent self-portrait, that ticks off all the boxes for expression, elegance and emotive evocation. Observation and a finer sense of deeper aesthetics are what define Alkazi as an astute and accurate artist. His lines are a lexicon of lithe languor.
Alkazi directed magnum opus productions like Tughlaq, Asadh Ka Ek Din and even Hamlet and Othello. His legendary reputation as a theatre director, an institution builder and a mentor to several generations of actors was just a tip of the iceberg because in the art world he was not just patron to artists like Souza and Tyeb Mehta but was also an archivist and gallerist.
Souza Family
This catalogue is a historical gem. Souza often spoke about his early days with friend, philosopher and guide, Alkazi. And one remembers his words about Souza’s epic work Family. “In the entire history of Indian art, he (Souza) is exceptional, in the sheer power and development of his work to a truly distinctive style, which sets it apart. In no period of Souza's work can you mistake it with anyone else's. What is this quality in him that sets him so uniquely apart and at the same time does not make him derivative? His work has incredible vitality and one has to search for its basis,” he said.
One recalls Alkazi’s words of the early years in London. “…I remember taking a handcart full of Souza’s paintings and going up and down Oxford Street and Bond Street trying to sell them."
Alkazi was friends with the Progressives but he was critical too and pulled no punches when he had to speak the truth.
In 1954 a Progressive Art Group show was published in the Theatre Unit Bulletin, Alkazi questioned their existence and wrote : “…what holds the group together is not a common aesthetic… but a herd instinct of self-preservation and security against the feeble attacks of an indifferent public.”
Astute collector not trophy hunter
Unlike some in the art world today Alkazi is no trophy hunter. He was a true blue-blooded collector. He knew the permutations of art as investment and did not believe in boasting. At best, Alkazi unveils as an archivist who loves history, literature and the wisdom of all the world being a stage in which men and women are merely players. This show is about the beauty of a personal and private passion, it is about the magic meandering of lines that speak about people, places, paradigms and parallels in the world of illustrations, emotions and worlds within worlds.
Amal Allana’s design speaks to us about how integral and imperative a floor plan is to vitality of a show. In more ways than one, Opening Lines is about art, it is about life and also about the inner journeys of India’s greatest collector who has the eye of a historian. Never has the magic of monochrome been so riveting as it is here in this multi-pronged curation. Indeed whether sedimented, imperial, textured or brooding, the power of drawing is unparalleled.