TSC Interviews | Juliet Reynolds | Part 3

Juliet Reynolds, well-known art critic and wife of the Hungryalist painter Anil Karanjai, met the editors of the Sunflower Collective at their Jor Bagh residence recently for a chat about her husband and his art, the art-world of India and in general, and the Leftist politics and its understanding of art. This is the final part of a three part series.

 A Portrait of  Ustad Ali Akbar Khan by  Anil Karanjai

JR: I know artists who paint their politics in their art.

AS: They make it very obvious...

GB: Obvious, yeah...

JR: Flag waving! Anil was against slogan-mongering in art.

GB: It’s across art I think...

JR: This was in the 80’s, he said it: “Art can be the propaganda of life.” He stuck by that. He felt it very strongly. There was a separation in his mind between what he did in art and those posters and things... He did those for many leftist organisations, or for PUDR (People’s Union for Democratic Rights); he designed their logo. Also, he did something on the rights of tribals; he did a sticker on it. He felt that was a part of his activism. He was using his skill as an artist for activism purposes. He wasn’t creating art; his art, he felt, was autonomous. He was very strict about that.

AS: But they did not get that?

JR: No, no, not at all. I don’t think anybody gets it to this day.

GB: Why did you think of leaving this place and go to Dehradun? Was it a gradual thing?

AS: A disenchantment?

JR: When my mother died, there was the possibility of buying something. But we didn’t have enough money to buy something in a nice part of Delhi. Neither did we want to live in a suburb. Anil had been to Dehradun because someone who used to deal in his work had connections there, a friend actually, one of the people who behaved quite nicely all along and gave a lot of support to Anil.

GB: He has many paintings of Anil?

JR: A lot of collectors who have Anil’s work have it through him. His name was Ashok Batra. He died a few years after Anil. It was a big blow to me. He was from Doon School. Through him, Anil got invited to do workshops in Doon School. Anil wasn’t particularly keen on that as he didn’t like the environment or what he was being paid, but he liked Dehradun. When the possibility came up to buy something, he said Dehradun was a good place as it was not too far from Delhi.

GB: It is written in your book that it was him who suggested it...

JR: It was his idea and not mine. I wouldn’t have thought of it. If I wanted to buy something, I would have gone straight to Goa. I like the sea; I was born by the sea; I loved the sea. But it wasn’t practical, I accept that, because of the distance. So that’s how it happened. It wasn’t that we had been thinking about it for years...but then he hardly got any time there.

GB: That’s what...

JR: The irony of it is that he got just one summer there.

GB: That’s what I have been thinking since I read your book.

JR: Just four and a half months.

GB: That’s very sad.

JR: Very sad and very ironic also.

GB: Very poetic in some sense, and especially the last phase of art that he did there...

JR: He was very prolific there.

GB: Yeah, you have written about it. It was quite touching, that part.

JR: Mostly small works but beautiful. Again, I can’t get anyone to understand that. Very few people get it. Even close friends and family... This is a great pity because I want to sell some works. I’ve got this trust in Anil’s name and I have no money in the account at all but this year I had to pay the accountant to file the tax returns! (chuckles) Nothing has happened all year, no transactions. I am not doing anything with it. The whole idea of the trust ...

GB: ...was to promote that?

JR: ...his memory plus doing this work with autistic kids.

AS: You mentioned his family and friends...

JR: Yes, they like the images but they say you must sell the oil on canvas. I don’t get it. Throughout art history, some great works have been done on paper, small works...it doesn’t always have to be the larger works, the oil paintings.

AS: They are only interested in the works on canvas?

JR: Maybe...one sells small works on paper at a lesser price, that’s fair enough. I’ve got such a collection of beautiful works in pastels. They’re exquisite. People should be buying them. If they want to fill their walls, they can buy more than one at a time.

AS: I would like to ask you if Anil had burned all his bridges with the Left?

JR: No. People like Vijay Singh – he is an academic but he edits Revolutionary Democracy – they had tremendous respect for him.

AS: Even Suneet Chopra of the CPM knew him well I think...

GB: I think what he is trying to say is that things can get pretty bad when you protest against the comrades.

JR: Earlier, he did not criticise them at all. They could do nothing wrong. I used to fight with him. Then I gave up. Anil and Suneet had ideological differences. Anil would curse the CPM and their attitude.  But Suneet did not have a problem. Suneet always admired Anil’s work very much. Suneet has written good pieces on Anil. Suneet was the one person who got it when Anil started painting landscapes. Anil had an exhibition, in 1991 I think. It was right in the beginning when he was experimenting with landscapes. They were difficult works; they were not so easy to like. Even I was like, oh my god, what’s he doing... But then this exhibition took place – I wasn’t here; I had gone to England to stay with my mother. But Suneet covered it for the Economic Times, I think. He got the relation between Anil’s work and Indian classical music. Anil was a great connoisseur.

GB: I have been meaning to ask about your plans...

JR: Among other things, I would like to find a home for some of the paintings in a museum.

Read Part 2 of this interview here
Read Part 1 of this interview here

     

TSC Interviews | Juliet Reynolds | Part 2

Juliet Reynolds, well-known art critic and wife of the Hungryalist painter Anil Karanjai, met the editors of the Sunflower Collective at their Jor Bagh residence recently for a chat about her husband and his art, the art-world of India and in general, and the Leftist politics and its understanding of art. 

The following discussion was preceded by Juliet Reynolds objecting to Malay Ray Choudhury making certain remarks about Anil Karanjai’s time in the US and his first marriage, in an earlier interview  with us. We would like to note that and make it known that we do not believe in censoring any form   of expression. However, it is also not our intention to cause anyone hurt and we regret any misunderstanding. This is part two of a three part series.  

    

Painting by  Anil Karanjai from the series called  'Solace in Solitude' painted during the last year of his life.

Another landscape by  Anil Karanjai

AS/GB: Anil fell out with the Leftists, isn’t it?

JR:  Anil went to America when the movement was gone.

GB: What time…

JR: He went in 1974. The Naxal movement was over by then. It wasn’t that he was running away which some of the comrades did. Anil did not do anything like that. He just left. Nothing dramatic, like getting chased, escaping… nothing like that. He was quite good at covering his tracks when the thing was going on, except they had raids, they raided the studio and all the material was taken by the cops.

GB: That Malay da mentioned.

JR: So that’s why I have almost no material. I have almost nothing from the 60’s …the police took it and he never got it back. Terrible waste, terrible.

GB: The raid was in Benaras?

JR: They were everywhere but the raid on these guys, yes. The police were following them also. They developed a kind of code in which they talked nonsense stuff to mislead the police… bullshitting you know (chuckles). So, yeah…when he came back (from the States) he continued to meet these people. Kanchan Kumar was bringing out Amukh, so Anil designed the logo; he also designed the logo of PUDR (People’s Union of Democratic Rights), he did the portraits of martyrs… Sometimes, posters and stuff he would do. And most of them would not respect his work. He used to feel really mad about that. But he never went and denounced them elsewhere. All his criticism, he would keep to himself. That hurt badly. Once they had organized an event and they asked him to do portraits of their martyrs and he went to tremendous pains to do these portraits well, black and white, not oil portraits,  but still they were very nicely done and after the rally was over, they were all torn and thrown on to the ground.

And then, when he started painting his landscapes, they really turned against him.

AS: They must have thought it was not “committed” art, or not for the people.

GB: It was probably too existential or individualistic for them.

JR: Yeah.

AS: They have their stock insults for people who don’t toe their line.

JR: Yeah. He used to feel sad or angry about this. He wasn’t at all happy about it. He called them nincompoops, half-educated fellows, illiterates….

GB: It is interesting to know that Benaras already had a communist movement going on there because we did not have much of a clue.

AS: Yeah.

JR: I think because of the Bengal connection. Huge numbers…the fixed population itself when I went there first in the late seventies, was at least 40% Bengali…and others came due to migration and pilgrimages. Now it’s much, much less. There are no jobs and they are going away. Benaras was half Bengali, all these schools and libraries…Anil was educated in a Bengali medium school, and not in Hindi. He learnt Hindi.  I think now they have scrapped that; there is no Bengali medium education in Benaras anymore. But in his time, it was very much there, you could walk out in the streets and every otherperson is speaking Bengali. Even the fish seller who came to Anil’s house spoke Bengali. Anil’s mother spoke no Hindi at all. All the vegetable vendors also spoke in Bengali. So it was mostly because of that.

GB: And he used to frequent Kolkata.

JR: He used to go there. Even after the Hungry Generation…for his artistic quest also.

He came close to Gopal Ghosh. He was a kind of a mentor (to him). Gopal Ghosh painted landscapes. I did not realise till very late how much the Ghosh family knew Anil. One of these dealers that cheated Anil, which I wrote about in the book (Finding Neema), one of the things he was able to get out of Anil was an introduction to Ghosh’s family. They trusted Anil, he introduced them to this man, and he ripped them off. He sweet talked Anil and Anil was not somebody who got taken in by people but he was getting tired and worn out by then. These were the kind of things that were happening at the end. Gopal Ghosh was quite an important figure in his life. When the Naxalite movement was going on – Anil told me this story – some journalist asked him, pointing at a flower painting, “why are you painting this when bloodshed is going on outside?” “You see, my roses are red”, (Ghosh said). The point was, the emotion Ghosh was expressing through his landscape, it was not unrelated to what was going on around him.

Read Part 1 of this interview here

Read Part 3 of this interview here

TSC Interviews | Juliet Reynolds | Part 1

Juliet Reynolds, well-known art critic and wife of the Hungryalist painter Anil Karanjai, met the editors of the Sunflower Collective at their Jor Bagh residence recently for a chat about her husband and his art, the art-world of India and in general, and the Leftist politics and its understanding of art. The conversation started with a discussion about a previous post on TSC describing Karanjai as "embittered" towards the end of his life. This is part one of a three part series. 

Anil at the Kausali artists' camp hosted by Vivan Sundaram in 1978.
Source : Facebook Page

JR: I was just a bit taken aback by the word ‘embittered’. And I got your point; you clarified it. Anil’s…wasn’t so much embitterment.

AS: I understand.

JR: In the Malay interview, that word comes up again. It hit me…

AS: Has Malay da used the word?

GB: I think one of the questions had it…

AS: Actually, that’s my understanding from reading the book (Finding Neema). I don’t put a negative value to bitterness. I like Bob Dylan; his songs are bitter. I think any reasonable person will feel bitter with this world because it is unfair.

JR: Bitterness was never really in Anil’s character. He could be very fiery; he would express a lot of rage and anger. But he also had a very soft, quiet side; he would feel sad about it then. There was a sad side to Anil…(almost) melancholic. He would feel deep sadness about things that had gone wrong…and then at times, he’d be furious. Maybe, in a way, there was an element of bitterness…

GB (to AS): I think you had meant to say that his experience was bitter…

AS: Yes.

GB: Not that as a man he was bitter.

JR: Ok, we clarified it now.

AS: He had taken to painting landscapes which were not considered highly in terms of concept.

JR: For him, landscapes were his own rebellion against mainstream art which was more and more imitating the trends in the West; he always felt strongly about that…art going into post-modernism, installation, he refused to do it.

AS: What is your view on it?

JR: Very rarely have I seen anything (of this sort) which struck a chord in me…emotional or intellectual. Recently, I was at the Royal Academy in London and I saw Ai Weiwei’s work and it was mostly installations. I was skeptical at first… because he is critical of the Communist regime so the West is making him very big…but I recognised that the man really has something, he has originality. Anish Kapoor is a midget in front of him, frankly.

AS: You don’t care much for his work?

JR: No. Highly over-rated.

AS: And Subodh Gupta?

JR: Also highly over-rated. Ridiculous. And it is not particularly new exhibiting bartan and garbage …even people like Vivan Sundaram, from an older generation, a really well-trained, very skillful artist, even he has piled up garbage at the Lalit Kala Akademi.

AS: Do you think identity is being peddled in the name of art?

JR: Certainly, I think there is tokenism. Anil was not only against it … from deep inside his core he could not do (what others were doing). It did not come from within. If his art did not come from somewhere deep inside him, he wasn’t going to do it.

There were many aspects to his painting landscapes. One was going against the mainstream. But he never protested for the sake of it. He was drawn to landscapes because he liked going into nature. He got a great feeling of solace and comfort from it. There is a film on him…

GB: Which was shown at the Sahitya Akademi?

JR: Yes, and he talks of spiritual loneliness in it. He wasn’t religious though.So that connection with nature he felt. He also wanted to give a contemporary, modern language to landscape while not straying too far from realism. That got him into a lot of trouble. Some called it calendar art. Anil looked at calendar art. He wanted to bridge the gap between high art and low art, to communicate with people. He was not interested in painting only for the elite. He wanted to communicate with as wide a public as possible.. (Of course) no artist is going to produce a masterpiece every time. It takes trial and error, experimentation. That happens to every artist. But everywhere his detractors would be saying  “aah”, “ooh”…“look at him, he’s painting Lodhi Gardens”. Lodhi Gardens was the closest place where he could be in nature. Like Cézanne, he was exploring the forms of nature, something much deeper, something more rooted; like Cézanne painted that mountain in Southern France (Mont Sainte Victoire ) hundreds of times, looking for something, that feeling he would get standing in front of it, how could he capture that feeling?

AS: Do you think he was protesting against the diktats of the Progressive movement and its emphasis on social realism?

JR: He knew about the Modern masters and paid homage to them in his early works. But he was not very influenced by any one artist. Maybe in his early years he liked the old master, Hieronymus Bosch… To be a Modernist, your work had to be full of contortions and distortions, he was also turning his back on that. But it wasn’t just for the sake of it,it was because he felt it also.

GB: It was more organic…

AS/ GB: Tell us about his politics?

JR: The Hungry Generation were anarchists, nihilsts. But Anil did not share that; from a very early stage, he was associated with the Left, the far-Left. I think he became a cadre of one of the mainstream Marxist parties also but they told him that he should wear dirty shoes when going to the people, that he should fill up these forms if he wanted to be promoted up the hierarchy, so he told them to take a running jump.

AS: So he did not favour their dogma and pretences?

JR: Oh no no! Never! But when the revolutionary movement was going on…

AS: You mean the Naxal movement?

JR: Yeah…He wasn't in Bengal at that time but he would go to Calcutta…. Also, there were student movements going on in Benaras, he was involved in all that. You couldn’t just define him narrowly. Anything which was questioning the status quo, something with solid foundation that could overthrow the status quo, anything of that kind had his support.
To come to Malay, they did not really share politics. Anil used to tell me that he did not really share their politics, anarchism and all that…it was because of the anti-establishment stance that he was part of the movement. And also, the energy and their creativity.He joined them for that. He was a bit at odds with their politics although not in any major kind of way. But he stuck to them because the Hungry Generation experience for Anil was life-changing.  I never realised until much later how much he missed it. In fact, Malay came here once, just once…

GB: In fact, he told me about you and that’s how we got in touch.

JR: Anil talked a lot about Malay after that and how much the movement had meant to him. Anil and Karuna (Nidhan, another Hungryalist painter ) were in Benaras at that time, with flower children and hippies…

GB: And the student politics…

JR: Yes, and I don’t know why the Hungry Generation fell apart, maybe there were ego problems…

GB: More than that, I think there were mass-arrests and the government…

JR: …Cracked down on them. But there were some differences between them, between Malay and others…

GB: There are.

JR: Yeah.


Read Part 2 of this interview here
Read Part 3 of this interview here