ArtsBespoke
Photograph of Tyeb Mehta

The Artists of the House · 30

Tyeb Mehta

1925 to 2009 · Kapadvanj, Gujarat

Painter of stark, spare figures such as the falling figure and the trussed bull, shaped by the violence of Partition.

Photograph: Cea, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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Born
1925
Died
2009
Birthplace
Kapadvanj, Gujarat
Medium
Oil painting, Acrylic, Film, Sculpture

Tyeb Mehta was born in Kapadvanj, Gujarat, in 1925 and grew up in the Crawford Market area of Mumbai. He first worked as a film editor, then took his diploma from the Sir J.J. School of Art in 1952. He became a member of the Bombay Progressive Artists Group and lived in London from 1959 to 1964, where the expressionism of Francis Bacon influenced him.

Mehta received a Rockefeller 3rd Fund fellowship in 1968 and spent time in New York. His recurring subjects include trussed bulls, rickshaw pullers, the Diagonal series, and later images of Kali and Mahishasura. He also made a short film, Koodal. His honours include the Kalidas Samman in 1988 and the Padma Bhushan in 2007. He died in Mumbai in 2009.

A life, dated

AB / TIMELINE

  1. 1925

    Born in Kapadvanj, Gujarat.

  2. 1952

    Earned his diploma from the Sir J. J. School of Art in Bombay.

  3. 1959

    Moved to London, where he lived and worked until 1964.

  4. 1968

    Received a fellowship from the John D. Rockefeller 3rd Fund.

  5. 1970

    His short film Koodal won the Filmfare Critics Award.

  6. 2007

    Received the Padma Bhushan.

  7. 2009

    Died in Mumbai on 2 July.

Held in public collections

AB / COLLECTIONS

  • Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi
  • National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi

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Works from the house

AB / WORKS

Prakash Bal Joshi, A turquoise river and two gold forms, 2024: gold figures and a gold horizon cross a wide field of turquoise, teal and ultramarine, with plum-violet columns standing at the left and right edges.

Abstract

A turquoise river and two gold forms

Prakash Bal Joshi. A wide landscape of water and sky worked almost entirely in turquoise, from pale aquamarine to deep ultramarine.

Sanjeev Sonpimpare, Embrace beneath the banyan: a square painting of two blue figures in an embrace in front of a banyan with hanging roots, high-rise towers and low rooftops.

Figures & portraits

Embrace beneath the banyan

Sanjeev Sonpimpare. Two figures, one in deep ultramarine and one in pale cornflower, hold each other in the foreground, their forms cut from flat colour with scratches of red showing through.

A square painting: a large vermilion half face in profile with a green eye, ringed by seated green and yellow deities, with a winged cow leaping over a brown and green chequerboard.

Devotional & narrative

Vermilion face with Kamadhenu

Ramesh Gorjala. A large vermilion half face in profile, with a single green eye, anchors this square canvas.

A square Kalamkari style painting: a saffron yellow face in profile with a gold nose ring, a crimson lotus panel at the right, and Maa Lakshmi Ji seated on a lotus inside the contour within a patterned sari border.

Devotional & narrative

Lakshmi on the lotus, saffron profile

Ramesh Gorjala. A saffron face in profile, a gold ring at the nostril, sets the key of the canvas.

All works Abstract Figures Devotional Landscape Ravi Varma Press stones