Art and the Middle Class! (Part 1)

Satish Naik, Editor of Chinha Art News takes an overview of the changing art scenario in Maharashtra and India with a special reference to the artistic taste of the middle class. The Indian economy has undergone sea change in the decades following independence, so is the art and the artistic taste. This insightful series offers glimpses of various transformative phases of the art world through the past decades till today.      

Renowned writer and art critic Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni and I had a very good friendly relationship. During the 1980s and 1990s, he and I would regularly meet – except Saturdays and Sundays at “Samovar Restaurant” at Jehangir Art Gallery in Mumbai. These meetings would be great chat sessions. Needless to say, the sessions also had some hushed ‘off the record’ gossip and of course, food and drinks were a part of these sessions.

Since Nadkarni had free access to drama, film, music, literature, journalism etc. fields, there used to be a lot of ‘official and unofficial’ chats at that time. But these chats would mostly be with reference to paintings only. Nadkarni would often speak angrily about the state of artists in Maharashtra. For example, he would say, “Your Marathi painters are all extremely xxxxxxx. They don’t read anything nor are they aware of anything that’s going on in the Art world. They do not read my writings too. But if there is an exhibition, they come to see me and do the smooth talking and want me to write about it in the Times. That’s it! For that, they keep trying to cling on to me.” He has on many occasions pointed out to me the kind of painters who would come to Samovar and as if to show me a demonstration, he would do hilarious mimicry of them too.

Often, he would angrily say, “Your Marathi society does not understand art. All they know is the paintings of Dinanath Dalal and Raghuvir Mulgaonkar. On the other hand, Vasudev Gaitonde and Prabhakar Barwe, the two avantgarde Marathi painters in India, who dominated the Indian art scene are totally lost on the Marathi people.” He would get frustrated at this lack of taste for art in the Marathi community. I never retorted, as I agreed with his opinion. I remember Nadkarni made these statements publicly in a special issue published by Pune’s “Sadhana” weekly during the nineties, thus drawing lot of criticism from the people in the art field.

After reading the letter sent to me by the editor of ‘Muktasamvad’ asking me to write an article on ‘Middle Class and Art’ for their August month issue, I was reminded of the statement by Dnyaneshwar Nadkarni and our discussions over the issue. In fact, almost a decade has passed since Nadkarni’s death, but the statement made by Nadkarni is true even today.

Sadly, Marathi society’s knowledge of painting and art is limited to Dinanath Dalal and Raghuvir Mulgaonkar even today. At best, apart from them, society probably knows one or two illustrators. Please do not think that I am undermining the achievements of Dalal and Mulgaonkar. In fact, my generation was very much influenced by these two artists, and it is because of them that I and many others like me were drawn to J J School of Art.

In the 1950s-60s, Dalal-Mulgaonkar duo were so successful that almost every Marathi household had pictures/calendars with Mulgaonkars drawings on their walls, while the ‘Deepawali’ issue with Dalal’s drawings was a priced possession for most middle-class homes. Mulgaonkar’s Diwali issue named ‘Ratnadeep’ was a big name at that time. As soon as Diwali was over, the Marathi people would cut drawings and paintings of Dalal-Mulgaonkar from these magazines and frame them as wall paintings.

After globalization, things gradually started changing. The paintings of Dalal-Mulgaonkar from the middle-class households were replaced by commercial posters. Ironically, it was during this period that the works of painters Vasudeo Gaitonde and Prabhakar Barwe began to be appreciated by Indian artists. The appreciation, of course came from Indian as well as foreign art lovers. Painter Gaitonde was popular since the fifties, while Barwe since the seventies.

Though, by now, the art fraternity was abuzz with appreciation for Gaitonde and Barwe, they had not reached the common man yet. Unfortunately, people started knowing them only after their deaths. However, one can say Barwe gained some appreciation because Marathi media has started taking note of this great artist. The Diwali special editions had started publishing the pages from his diary in the form of articles and his drawings on the cover page. It would not be an exaggeration to say that Barwe’s book ‘Kora Canvas’ (Blank Canvas) fascinated the Marathi intellectuals who lived by the ideology.

In the late eighties, art gradually began to gain glamour in Maharashtra. It all started with a public performance of “Jugalbandi” by Bharat Ratna Pandit Bhimsen Joshi and painter M F Hussain. Hussain’s blank canvas was sold for a whopping Rs. five lakhs during that time. (Today five lakh rupees may not seem to be a big amount, but at that time it was! This incident had a great news value also) This was the turning point in the field of Indian Art. That’s when the commercial companies like Times entered the field changing the dynamics of it. Do you remember the ‘auction’ on a boat? Art exhibition at Boribunder station etc.? It was since then that painters started getting immense fame. Since then, Hussain’s artworks have fetched huge prices. The budding artists who came to Mumbai during that time took advantage of this vibrant art atmosphere in Mumbai. That was also the period when the ‘Marathi manus’ (Marathi common man) in Mumbai had started losing his prominence in many fields, the same happened in the field of art, too.

(To be continued)

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Satish Naik

Editor, “Chinha Art News”

www.chinha.in

Prior publication: ‘Samatawadi MuktSanvad Patrika’ Monthly, August 2023.

Re-published in ‘Chinha Art News’ with prior consent of the editor.