Windfall for all connected with art

Mumbai's Chatrapati Shivaji Vastu Sanghralaya, better remembered as the Prince of Wales Museum, committed a first of sorts by deciding to section off 4,500 square feet of precious space for a stellar collection of Indian contemporary art — the Nicholson collection, which includes priceless and important paintings by the Progressive Artists' Group, including SH Raza, MF Husain, FN Souza and the legendry VS Gaitonde, which is now open for public viewing as per the terms of a 15-year loan. Virtually a first for the city, this sort of bequeathing, quite common in other countries, will, one hopes, set a precedent for other collectors/collections. For scholars, academics, art students and connoisseurs interested in understanding the development of Modernist painting in India through a study of key works, this limited period gift can only be termed a windfall.  

The late Jehangir Nicholson, erstwhile Sheriff of Bombay, would certainly have been proud and gleeful had he been around to see his abiding dream come alive. A man with no offspring, Nicholson was an ardent art collector. At a time when very few people viewed, leave alone acquired art, this motor car enthusiast and astute businessman pursued contemporary art as passionately as he did life's other pleasures. The death of his wife led him to spend more and more time with art and artists. So much so that his interest in the subject became increasingly attuned to the technicalities of the subject. Painter Laxman Shreshtha recalls having many conversations on the intricacies of painterly problems with the "old gent", as do other artists and galleriests of that time. 

During the course of an interview for a catalogue published several years ago, he said to me: "Right or wrong has never been my philosophy or interest. Art for art's sake. To acquire good art has been my desire, no matter the mistakes that have been made. Mine is a collection that tries to cover the 50 years - 1948-1998 - with works of art that can be considered museum quality. Find me the space in the South Bombay area and I would desire to give and build a museum worth its name in my city along with most of my little collection."

In the same catalogue, critic Ranjit Hoskote has written, "Like all pleasures, the pleasure of collecting art is tempered and given strength by an awareness of duty. The collector who simply assembles an array of objects that pleases him - in the narrowest sense of tickling his fancy — is merely pursuing an infatuation. If this passion is ever to mature into love, it must find a direction, grow into a commitment. 

It is a simple truism in the realm of culture that bad collections of art are all bad in the same way. But good collections are each remarkable and distinctive in their own way: the value that a good private collection holds for its ambient culture can hardly be exaggerated. It acts as a nucleus of vision, as a space in which we may reflect on the aspirations, the hopes, the experiments of our artists."

The Nicholson collection, as it stands, with all its inconsistencies, certainly reflects all these qualities. As a collection, it is worth viewing, also for the fact that it reflects the mind of a visionary and generous collector. The stunning early abstracts by Laxman Shreshtha, V S Gaitonde and S H Raza that hold pride of place within the collection are enough to warrant a summer holiday to Mumbai.
 

— The writer is an arts consultant