● CUSTODIAN OF CULTURE
JAGDISH MITTAL’S INNATE CAPACITY TO IDENTIFY GREAT WORKS OF ART WITHOUT ANY PRIOR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT THEM, HAS MADE HIM ONE OF THE MOST CELEBRATED ART CONNOISSEURS
Avenerated authority among India’s art cognoscenti, Jagdish Mittal at 93 is still as sharp and focussed as he’s ever been. Old age has left a mark on the man, but his eyes reflect tales of a sevendecade long career span, where he has gone from being an artist and collector to a published scholar who has been celebrated by such institutions as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
The Padma Shri awardee, who originally hailed from Uttar Pradesh, chose a different path from his engineer father, when he decided to pursue a degree in Fine Arts from Kala Bhavan, Vishwa Bharti, Santiniketan. “It was when our teacher took us to Benares on a trip that I first encountered the spark in the eyes of the scholar Rai Krishnadas. His vigour and zeal inspired us,” says Mittal of his initial foray into the arts. Further research and study unearthed an inherent ability to recognise good art, which eventually kindled a passion for collecting pieces.
“I once saw a black and white photograph of a painting in a text book and became obsessed by it. I didn’t know what it was, but fussed over it for months. It turned out to be a painting that was part of an album given by Dara Shikoh to his wife. Today the same painting is displayed in London as a work of historical value.”
Many other such random finds resulted in Mittal recognising his innate capacity to identify great works of art without any prior knowledge about them, “I once liked a series of six Pahadi miniature paintings that I bought without knowing who they were by,” he shares, “After a little research, they turned out to be works by Nainsukh.”
One of the most highly regarded Pahadi painters, those six paintings by Nainsukh that Mittal bought back in the day are estimated to be worth anywhere between ` 10- 15 crores today.
A LIKE- MINDED PAIR
Jagdish and his wife Kamla met in the late 1940s and by 1951 were married. “I had a job for a short time in Chamba, Himachal Pradesh,” shares Mittal, “Where I was the advisor to the Bhuri Singh Museum. N. C. Mehta, the Chief Commissioner of the State had asked artist Nandalal Bose for a recommendation and he put my name forward. There I discovered old murals, beautiful miniatures and paintings directly at the home of the painter’s decedents. I even picked up works for my own collection, which was just starting then. This was where my appreciation for Himachali art started.”
While Mittal and Kamla were settling into domesticity, an unexpected invitation changed the course of their lives causing them to shift base to Hyderabad. “Since I was painting back then, Badrivishal Pitti invited me and Kamla to exhibit our works in 1951. So barely a month after our marriage we moved to Hyderabad, where after the exhibition Pitti convinced me to work as editor for a Hindi journal he owned,
Kalpana.”
Busy with his new job as a writer, Mittal gave up on painting but earned a new zeal for collecting. “Kamla used to accompany me on my trips to Jaipur, Delhi and Himachal. She had a great eye and could identify objects better than any museum director. Later in 1957 we made this house in Himayatnagar, and people started bringing pieces home. Kamla was always by my side when we were going to buy an object. She wasn’t a writer, but otherwise was just as involved curating this collection as I have been.”
The collection which spans over 2000 pieces, comprises mainly of miniatures. “Almost 800 pieces in the collection are miniatures and drawings,” says Mittal, “The rest are metalware and figures, old textiles and other items. It’s a reflection of Indian art, from the 1st century AD till 1900. I have not collected modern paintings due to space and budget constraints, so the collection stops at 1900.”
A STUDY OF MINIATURES
With a sudden increase in the demand for miniature paintings, art collectors today are blindly picking up works based on great returns someday in the future. But for Mittal, his appreciation for the miniature form began almost half a century before the Indian art market warmed up to the idea of assigning any value to the rare pieces. “I bought miniatures from all over India. Never from auction houses, but mostly from the family of artists or old collectors. For me it is the appeal of the object that is most important. Buyers usually go by the period and school, but that’s of no importance if the art doesn’t appeal to your aesthetic sense,” explains Mittal, “In the Pahadi School alone you have 15 different variations, ranging from Chamba to Kangra, Jammu to Guler and many more. Then you have the Mughal School which was based pred o m i n a n t ly between Lahore, Delhi and Agra, but later permeated into Central India as well.”
Much of Mittal’s miniature collection consists of works that range from sketches to paintings commissioned by the royal courts. A unique painting from the Deccan’s Golconda School of A Parrot Perched on a Mango Tree, with a Ram tethered below, was used by the MET in New York as a colossal banner welcoming viewers to their Indian art exhibit, it was even printed on the sides of bus stops and cabs all across Manhattan. Mittal then shows us another fine specimen from his collection, A night scene from the Pahadi School. With colours so bright, it’s a work that can make even the most unappreciative viewer marvel at its beauty… almost like it was painted just yesterday and not four centuries ago.
ANCIENT METALWARE
“There is a massive craze for Chola figures,
I bought miniatures from all over India. Never from auction houses, but from the family of artists or old collectors. For me it is the appeal of the object that is important. Buyers usually go by the period and school, but that’s of no importance if the art doesn’t appeal to your aesthetic sense
Kamla ( his wife) used to accompany me on my trips to Jaipur, Delhi and Himachal. She had a great eye and could identify objects better than any museum director. Kamla was always by my side when we were going to buy an object
which has almost become like fashion,” says Mittal, “People want to be able to differentiate between a Chola and a Chalukyan bronze. Cholas are very graceful and have fine workmanship, but I feel the inner vigour of a Chalukyan bronze figure is far superior to a Chola. The Himachali bronzes for me are even more sublime than the Chola and the Chalukyan bronzes. Dr Douglass Barrett, a dear friend of mine from the industry, once pointed out to me that the Indian government was foolish to try to repatriate the famous Chola Natraj in the 1980s, when instead they should have concentrated more on the Himachali bronzes that were displayed on either side of it in London, since they were far superior. I tend to agree with him on that point.”
Mittal is quick to point out the complexity in buying a Chola bronze. “They can range anywhere from ` 2 lakh to ` 15 crore on the Indian market, but are sometimes risky to buy. The smaller sculptures may have once been owned by affluent families, but the really large ones are mostly taken from temples and sold on the market illegally.