A riot of colours and forms

When Manu Parekh was in class four, he realised that his art teacher didn’t know how to draw. The young student was prodded by him to draw on the black board, which was then emulated by his class mates. It was then that he realised art was his true calling. However, it took a long time for him to actually pursue his passion. Today, he is one of India’s leading artists. On March 12, a retrospective of his works, spanning six decades of his career, presented by the Mumbai-based Art & Soul, will be held at the National Gallery of Modern Art. Titled Manu Parekh, 60 Years of Selected Works, it showcases over 150 creations. In addition to this, a book, which is named after the exhibition, also chronicles his repertoire from the 1960s to the present time.

Journey across various streams

Born in 1939 in Ahmedabad, Manu graduated from the JJ School of Art. During an inter-collegiate festival that famous Gujarati writer and columnist Taarak Mehta chose him and a couple of other students to act in plays and design sets. It was then that Manu’s association with theatre began. He gradually started working as a stage designer and an actor and moved to Ahmedabad to perform plays with the Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA).
Later, he started working with cultural activist and writer Pupul Jayakar as an art designer in 1963. As Pupul was known for her work on the revival of traditional and village arts in India, it exposed him to the world of handloom and handicrafts. Then, he moved to Kolkata where he was deeply inspired by Shantiniketan and the old masters of Indian art, Ram Kinkar Baij and Rabindranath Tagore. Banaras played an integral role in his work when he visited the holy city after his father’s demise. These places offered him a vast number of contradictions in terms of hues and moods, which was evident in his paintings. Finally, he moved to New Delhi where he worked as a design consultant with a government body, which specialised in handicrafts and handlooms, before finally pursuing a full-time career as an artist.

Inspired by people and landscapes

Bright hues and sharp lines dominate Manu’s works, which range from portraits to landscapes. The works in this exhibition are divided into various series such as Early Works, Rituals & Abstract, Animals, Still Life, Heads and Banaras Landscape. The Padma Shri recipient admits that he is strongly influenced by his surroundings. He says, “Such kind of a retrospective gives me an opportunity to do a critical analysis of my works. Over the course of my career, I have experimented so much and explored diverse possibilities. During my stints in villages when I worked in the handloom sector, I saw the real India. I worked in Madhubani (Bihar), Odisha and Rajasthan. In those places, people take immense joy in the smaller things of life. The women help their husbands in the fields and I have captured their dynamics in my works.” The 79-year-old adds, “Theatre too has played a crucial role in my career. For instance, when I paint heads, I paint expressions.”

According to Tarana Khubchandani, Director, Art & Soul Gallery, Manu is ‘a visual storyteller’. She says, “I see the merging of traditions and yet the questioning of them; the melding and merging and yet the separation, his unfailing memory holds on to all of his absorptions until they pour out seamlessly, sometimes on paper and other times on canvas.”

Manu Parekh, 60 Years of Selected Works will be on till April 15 at National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai.