The Gaur collection highlights paper works

A new book featuring works from the Umesh and Sunanda Gaur collection highlights paper's central role in artistic practice

- Avantika Bhuyan

It is always fascinating to see the early works of artists to gain insight into their journey. Bombay Beggars, a 1944 work painted by Francis Newton Souza when he was still an art student, offers exactly that. A watercolour on paper, it shows the initial steps in his lifelong preoccupation with figuration and nudes. The work, painted when Souza was around 20, is a powerful depiction of the disenfranchised and marginalised in Bombay (now Mumbai).

"The group is shown unclothed-possibly the first among such paintings in which he dispensed with the need for apparel altogether. His later paintings would feature nudes as well as landscapes but in circumstances vastly different from this," states an essay in the book Paper Trails: Modern Indian Works On Paper From The Gaur Collection.

Several significant paintings, such as Bombay Beggars, are mentioned in this rare piece of scholarly writing about works on paper from post-independence India. Published by Mapin recently, in conjunction with an exhibition at the Grinnell College Museum of Art, US, between September-December, the book draws from the seminal Umesh and Sunanda Gaur collection. The exhibition was curated by Prof. Tamara Sears, a specialist in South Asian art and architecture, who also edited the book, which features essays by Michael Mackenzie, Paula Sengupta, Emma Osle, Rebecca M Brown, Kishore Singh and Swathi Gorle.

Paper Trails comprises 149 illustrations-watercolours, drawings, etchings, sketches and lithographs by Indian modernists who came of age in the decades following independence. The Gaur collection of works on paper is significant for its depth and diversity, with artists like Souza, M.F. Husain, Zarina, Anupam Sud, K.G.Subramanyan, Bhupen Khakhar, Chittoprasad, Haren Das, Arpita Singh and Somnath Hore featuring in it.