The Portrait Of A Lady

At her New Delhi home, art patron Tarana Sawhney’s expansive collection of contemporary art takes centre stage

- Sunil Sethi

Tarana Sawhney is firmly established as a leading art maven in the capital. She is of a select, energetic breed of women that includes Feroze Gujral, Roshini and Parul Vadehra, and Radhika Chopra. But whereas Gujral was influenced by marrying into a leading artist’s family, and the Vadehras are legatees of a storied art gallery, Tarana—now in her early 40s, with two degrees in law who once worked as a junior to Arun Jaitley, now finance minister, before he joined the cabinet—is a bird of a different feather.

Her interest in contemporary art is a trajectory that went from sporadic to passionate, and is now so deeply committed, that—as patron, collector and lobbyist—she brings to it something of a zealot’s fervour underpinned by a forensic legal mind. Apart from serving on the board of the New Delhi-based Foundation of Indian Contemporary Art (FICA), Sawhney is a key figure of FICA’s philanthropic Patrons’ Programme (‘Power Patrons’, AD March-April 2018). She also serves on Tate Modern’s South Asian acquisitions committee and was recently named chair of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s task force on art and culture. Everything from programming, fundraising, voting on artists’ grants and rewarding excellence is part of her remit. “I pack in something like a 12-day week,” she says laughing, her expressive face lit with animation as she welcomes you into her spacious two-storey home in a quiet corner of a garden square in central Delhi.

GALLERY LIVING