Chennai finds favour with Cartier counsellor's passion

CHENNAI: It is well past midnight and Chennai is dozing off. Through the huge window of the Taj Coromandel's seventh floor suite, a fair man in white linen surveys the nocturnal glitter of the city. He spreads the thick 'Aquarelle Fontaine' paper, water colours, felt-tipped pens and brushes before him. He starts painting.

For Olaf Van Cleef, a descendant of the celebrated Van Cleef family of jewellers and himself a high range jewellery counsel for Cartier, painting became a passion only five years ago. When he painted enough to convince himself of his inexhaustible imagination and impressions, Van Cleef decided to exhibit his work titled '1000 Fire Flies'. And instead of going to the galleries in France, he premiered his show in Chennai.

Why India?

"I could have done it anywhere in the world. But I don't want to make my debut in the West or Europe where everything is seen as a business. India is warmer and has more values," he says.

India, in fact, is his second home. Van Cleef, who lost his mother when he was just 18 months old, was brought up by his grandmother and later adopted by a lady called Alice. "As a child, I preferred Jungle Book to Tarzan. I frequented Mumbai with my grandma often. We used to keep parrots brought from Crawford Market during our couple of months' stay and release them from the terrace on the day we left. I have also been visiting Kolkata every other year since 1989."

Olaf is the first in the family of Jews to be converted into Christianity. His grandfather, Eduard Van Cleef, took refuge in Mumbai between 1939 and 1944 when the Nazis were running riot.

"He returned to Nice a bit too early and was captured and sent to Auschwitz," says the 55-year-old Van Cleef, who visits India every alternate year.

Much like his favourite painters Miro and Kandisky, Van Cleef prefers abstracts. "I don't feel happy with realistic paintings," he says before adding in a jewellers' parlance, "Realism is gold - too rich. But a little gold with some diamonds is aesthetic." So, you see blobs of white turning into diamond studs on myriad shades and shapes of red, blue, green and streaks of black when he paints a carpet, a garden or even a self-portrait.

One constant in Van Cleef's mosaic-like paintings is the aerial view  of his subject. No wonder he reaches for the brush when he opens the window of his seventh floor suite.