Himmat Shah at 90 | Tales in ink and diamonds

Sculptor Himmat Shah at Bikaner Home
| Photograph Credit score: Particular association

After I meet Himmat Shah at Bikaner Home in Delhi, I can not guess from his manner — joking, laughing and gently flirting with the company — that he has simply turned 90. We’re at Below the Masks, an exhibition that opened at Bikaner Home final month earlier than shifting to Artwork Magnum. “I did all these drawings in the course of the lockdown,” he says, pointing on the show of intricate non-figurative linear pictures in black ink and pencil on the partitions. “It was troublesome to step out to go to my studio in Garhi [20 km from his house in Jaipur], which is my every day routine, very like consuming my breakfast.”

I can’t assist however smile on the light-hearted expression on his face, as I transfer nearer to the works. With over 300 drawings within the pandemic collection, 40 originals are on show alongside smaller prints of the remaining artwork. “These drawings delve deeper into Shah’s understanding of the human spirit, of the flexibility to battle by way of troublesome occasions, and to self-realise regardless of adversity,” says curator Jyotirmoy Bhattacharya. The exhibition is in collaboration with the Jaipur Centre of Tradition and Arts.

Supplies and the person

A big sculpture in bronze catches one’s eye. A part of a brand new collection (the remainder is on show on the JCCA), it’s over eight toes tall and is a extra summary expression as in comparison with Shah’s earlier work that’s primarily based on the human determine and face.

One other large attraction is a collection of over 20 images by Raghu Rai, who has documented Shah over time. The beautiful black-and-white pictures seize his inventive exploration and life exterior the studio. Pictures of Shah engaged on his sculptures dangle alongside photographs of him trekking and exercising. Some of the imposing frames is the place the photographer obtained the artist to pose alongside his new bronze sculpture.

Essentially the most distinctive exhibit of Below the Masks, nonetheless, is housed in a darkened room, the place the highlight picks out two vitrines with two sculptures carved in diamond. The tiny items are magnified by a projector. That is the primary time that Shah — who has mastered many mediums in his profession, from terracotta and stone to plaster of Paris — has labored with gems. Impressed by Jaipur’s native craftsmanship, he collaborated with diamond cutters for nearly a yr to finish the challenge.

Mukesh Singh, a younger sculptor and scholar of Shah’s, who labored intently with the artist on the challenge, says, “I learnt a lot from the grasp artist for whom materials is each a problem and a present of expression.”

A brief movie enjoying on loop in one of many rooms showcases the art work housed on the JCCA. “We hope that individuals can even go to our centre in Jaipur, which has a big assortment of Himmat Shah’s works to have a good time his 90th birthday,” says Monika Sharda, director of JCCA.

One of many sculptures is impressed by Hammer on the Sq., a big drawing that Shah had executed early in his profession. Depicting a hammer balanced on a sq., it highlights key concepts of the artist’s works: fragility and the transience of existence, and the heightened relationship between ephemeral layers and stasis. Shah, who describes his work as spontaneous, has all the time had an intense connection to misplaced civilizations and cultures. Maybe as a result of he grew up in Lothal, Gujarat, surrounded by the remnants of a distinguished port metropolis of the Indus Valley civilisation.

The second sculpture, Knowledge Fruit, is impressed by the skyscrapers he noticed within the West, which reminded him of conical fruit — and that are actually changing into a part of the Indian cityscape. To the artist, it represents the morphing of nature and the town.

Until August 14 at Artwork Magnum, New Delhi, and at JCCA until October 31.

The author is a critic-curator by day, and a visible artist by evening.