His biographer reflects on the iconic artist and the legacy of his life
I first met Tyeb Mehta when I was 19 and had just begun to write art criticism. Tyeb’s resplendent images, his falling figures, trussed bulls, shamanic women, and rickshaw-pullers fused with their soul-destroying vehicles, had already won critical acclaim; but had only just begun to be matched by commercial success.Besides, the critical acclaim had come couched in the colonised idiom then still current: To many, Tyeb was the ‘Indian Bacon’, a condescending label, given the palpable difference between the two masters.
Reflections
"Tyeb Mehta was a very close friend of mine. Seeing his work since he first exhibited in the last 1950’s, I always thought he was the finest painter of his generation.
When Mehta lived on Mohammed Ali Road in South Mumbai, he watched a man being hacked and slaughtered by rioting people from his window. According to Mehta himself, the uncertainty of freedom, the uncertainty of communal relations, and everything about India that he was concerned with, is all rooted in this one violent image that he actually saw in real life.
He was very much a questing man. And one thing he really wanted to do was make films, and he often talked about it with his dear friend M.F. Husain. Husain made big budget movies. But Mehta didn’t have the money and no one would fund the kind of films he wanted to make.
Mr. Mehta’s specialty is that he dug into Hindu mythology much deeper than any Hindu artist of our time, even Husain. Once he started dealing with a theme, he would exhaust it from every angle, so he wasn’t prolific. But he worked continuously. Even when he died, he had a very large work on his easel. It was only in outline because his eyesight was failing, so his grandson who was a painter was to fill in the outline later. "
Dilip Chitre, Indian painter, writer and filmmaker, and a close friend of Mehta’s
"I guess my immediate feeling, when I saw the announcement of Tyeb's death was ‘Ah, the old guard—and also the vanguard—is dying out.’ I cannot hear his name without immediately thinking of Raza, Souza, Ara, Husain and Akbar Padamsee…they have practically passed into the mythic past. They were the young bloods of Independent India. There was something heady and unbridled about their work, even though it was so inextricably linked to Western modernism.
When I stop to look at it, Mehta’s vision was uniquely his, separate and distinct. And he remained true it, he didn't sway with every passing breeze. He belonged to an era when artists were still expected to be able to draw and I admire that.
There's no clear answer about why he didn't enjoy commercial success—but I would like to think it's because he maintained his purity—he didn't bow his head to Mammon— and maybe that meant that his work took a long slow time to reach the eminence that he achieved later.
What I like about his work is that quality of resistance to pressure—the stolid, uncompromising lines, the block-like solidity of his images. In their homeliness, their lack of ornament and their awkwardness, they come through as sincere."
Manjula Padhmanaban, writer and artist
"Tyeb traversed a long and painful life in many ways. His chosen imagery — usually a solitary figure — became iconic, from the early trussed bulls to the rickshawala and falling figure to Kali and Mahisasaura.
My first meeting with him in 1993 was a rare mismatch of energy levels, as his humility shone through that hoarse voice rooted in a gently absorbed pain. He wanted to get rid of the sculpted line in his art, but being a figurative painter could not; he genuinely loved Husain, and was one of the few artists who always stood by him. I remember how much more passionate and excited he became for me to see his documentary film ‘Koodal’ than his paintings.
Bit by bit his bodily parts were becoming fragile as with many with age, and when rarely we would speak on the phone, it was equally sad and funny, as both of us, neither with the best of health, but both stubborn to the core, shouting into deaf ears with broken voices.
He just wanted his small family to be happy, and I remember how he had kept the early trussed bull for Sakina and his children. That was a rare love and bond, Tyeb and Sakina. Their togetherness, him in his comfy old chair, phone besides, she sitting besides on the sofa, silent but totally absorbed in their togetherness."
Neville Tuli, Chairman of Osian’s
"Whenever we did meet him, we would all flock towards like he was a deity. From his generation people were arrogant and wouldn’t talk to anyone. But he would try and speak to everybody, there was no arrogance about him at all."
Brinda Miller, Contemporary artist
(This story appears in the 31 July, 2009 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)