London: On the 22 August, the beautiful Engadin opened its doors to an exhibition of Contemporary Art from India hailing the seventh St Moritz Art Masters exhibition.
The event boasted 30,000 visitors, introducing to the area some of India’s most prestigious artists, including but not limited to Manish Nai, Nalini Milani, Shilpa Gupta and Dubodh Gupta. Through guided Walks of Art, visitors from around the globe were guided through site-specific art interventions, which brought Indian life to the Alpine setting.
At the very centre of this buzzing exhibition stood a seminal exhibition of works from the Stellar International Art Foundation’s art collection – a three-artist show which linked contemporary to modern, India to Europe, and the spiritual to the secular.
The first room showcased a group of watercolours by Paresh Maity, who lives and works in Delhi. Paresh’s work is famous for his vibrant colours and luminosity. What made this selection important was the variety of locations the artist depicted. Just as the Indian art brought the east to the Alps, Paresh’s vibrant style brought India to his depictions of Venice, Japan, Iceland and Alaska.
Escaping from secular and worldly visions, a second space presented the work of Maity’s wife Jayasri Burman who brought to life the spiritual in both literal and stylistic manner.
The gem of the entire presentation – was the exhibition of over nearly 100 works by the late, great M F Husain. At its heart, literally in the centre of the room, stood the famed Maria Collection. A group of 80 works which Husain gifted to the woman he termed the ‘purest’ love of his life – Maria Jaroslav Zurkova – who was his translator on his first visit to Prague for an exhibition there in 1956. It was the first time this series has ever been made available to the public eye.
This tribute as an exhibition highlighted the launch of the first publication since Husain’s tragic passing in 2011. Commissioned by Stellar International Art Foundation, M F Husain: The Journey of a Legend, was written by Kishore Singh, Head of Exhibitions and Publications for Delhi Art Gallery.
The book is a prodigious volume, including all of the nearly 300 works by Husain in the Stellar International Art Foundation collection. Equal to the power of the plates, is within this book a most eloquent biography of the artist and the beautiful story of his relationship to the Choudhrie Family, founders of the Stellar International Art Foundation. It is truly an enchanting text, which deserves the same painstaking attention as the mesmerising images of the artist’s work itself.
The publication was launched at the Nira Alpina Hotel overlooking St. Moritz on the morning of the 24 August. Surrounded by the beautiful landscape, the first book was introduced by Kishore Singh and then officially presented and debuted by Bollywood starlet Sharmila Tagore, one of Husain’s greatest advocates and friends.
In the words of founder Mrs. Anita Choudhrie: “For us, I think all this effort that we have made for the Art Masters for 2014 is all based on our absolute love for M F Husain...all this that we are doing is in his memory.”
