Painters' Portraits

THE conundrums keep cropping up with relentless persistence. Contemporary Indian painting—dazzlingly vibrant, diverse, constantly evolving—is, after all, full of fascinating puzzles. What is it that Jogen Chowdhury owes to Swedish film meister Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries? To what extent does the accomplished poet in Ghulam Mohammed Sheikh impact the artist in him, or vice-versa? Did the long years she spent in a one-room dwelling in Old Delhi's congested Jama Masjid area have something to do with the deep sense of claustrophobia that much of Gogi Saroj Pal's artistic output conveys? Where precisely does 'the frenzy of creativity' that gripped Calcutta from the mid-'60s to the early '70s fit into Manu Parekh's oeuvre?

The answers to these questions are not quite as simple and unidirectional as they may seem, but veteran television producer and filmmaker K. Bikram Singh's 13-part series, A Painter's Portrait, scheduled to premiere on Doordarshan's Channel III on January 6 at 9.30 pm, formulates them with striking clarity and airs them with a remarkable lightness of touch. "The series," its creator explains, "is aimed at the general television audience. So what I am trying to do is demystify contemporary art for the benefit of viewers who have an interest in present-day painters but do not possess the technical wherewithal to comprehend their work in its totality."

 It is art without artifice. So A Painter's Portrait, which zooms in on 13 of India's most admired wielders of the brush and strings together illuminating nuggets of information, cuts out the jargon and presents an uncluttered overview of the life and work of each of the painters. "I am not attempting an in-depth evaluation of an artist's work," Singh confesses. "The effort here is to simply identify the principal experiences and influences in a painter's life, to locate the important points of reference in his or her work." Besides the painters mentioned above, the distinguished artists who figure in the series are Manjit Bawa, Akbar Padamsee, Gieve Patel, Amitava Das, Kris-hen Khanna, Nilima Sheikh, A. Ramachandran, Arpita Singh and Shamshad Husain.

But why just 13? DD's Channel III, says Singh, had initially commissioned 26 episodes. So when the filmmaker, aided by 'subject expert' Vinod Bhardwaj, began work on the series in November 1995, that is the number he had in mind. Unfortunately, with DD III short of funds, the number of episodes had to be scaled down.

Singh's approach to the subject may be general, but his treatment of the material is certainly not superficial. Backed by intensive research, extensive location shooting, interviews not only with painters but also art scholars like Geeta Kapoor, Santo Dutta, Pranab Ranjan Ray, Gayatri Sinha, Geeti Sen, Prayag Shukla and Suneet Chopra and unobtrusive camerawork and lighting, each 30-minute episode etches out a lively portrait that is as intimate as it is invigorating, that is as much about art as about life itself.

The sweep of the series is impressive: Singh, a veteran of over 50 documentaries, deals with the implications of political developments, the history of Indian art movements and varied biographical details with considerable control as he places each painter in clear socio-cultural context.

 Not surprising at all for a bureaucrat-turned-filmmaker whose interest in contemporary Indian painting dates back to the mid-'80s. Not long after Singh quit government service following a fruitful 22-year stint when he was also joint director (film festivals) and director (film policy), to pursue a full-time career as a filmmaker, he made a well-received documentary, Indian Contemporary Painting. In 1993-94, Singh followed it up with a 12-part series, The Story of Indian Painting, for the Central Education Curriculum. And that's where A Painter's Portrait germinated. Given its scope, the project has had its share of stumbling blocks. Says Singh: "An artist's work tends to get scattered. It's not possible, therefore, to wrap up an episode by shooting in one or two locations." 

Travel was understandably an integral part of the project. As was tact. "Permission had to be sought from private collectors who are in possession of many of the works on show in the series. It was quite difficult, especially because many of the paintings have been bought in the black market and the collectors are not keen on exposing them to public view." 

But the toil hasn't been in vain. In A Painter's Portrait Singh, whose debut feature, Tarpan, wrested the Naguib Mahfouz Prize for the best first film of a director at the Cairo festival in 1995, achieves the perfect pitch: a broad survey of Indian contemporary painters that is hugely informative without being remotely intimidating.