Mumbai’s Glazed Memories

The Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation (JNAF) gallery is known for spotlighting unsung legacies and forgotten chapters from Bombay’s myriad cultural touchpoints. Their most recent shows include an ethnographic project shedding light on the forested area nestled within the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Foy Nissen’s photographic documentation of the Maximum City’s bygone era and a tribute to the iconic Bombay Talkies to name a few. Continuing the momentum, A Glazed History: Badri Narayan and the Vitrum Studio at JNAF resurrects yet another of Bombay’s quintessential stories. This time, taking centre stage is the tale of an artist eager to push the boundaries of creativity and a supportive studio that provided him with the environment and resources to create. Perhaps, not many art lovers might be aware of Vitrum Studio, which once existed in Mumbai. It was a space that blurred the distinction between art, design and architecture where the Indian modern artist Badri Narayan, along with several of his contemporaries, had found employment. From 1957 till 1974 when the studio eventually shut down, it was here that Narayan produced a unique body of work consisting primarily of hand-painted ceramic art pieces and glass mosaics. Though not as widely seen as his surreal, often folklore-infused oil and watercolour paintings, Narayan’s ceramics and mosaics from the early decades of his career are some of the highlights of this show.

According to Puja Vaish, curator of the exhibition and director, JNAF, A Glazed History happens to be the first-ever exhibition devoted to the Vitrum initiative. It was long overdue, she says, as it “speaks to several questions in contemporary Indian cultural and design discourse and reflects how unique expressions can emerge from a cross-cultural encounter”. The Vitrum Studio’s mantra was to produce budget-friendly art pieces, particularly aimed at the emerging middle-class families in a city undergoing rapid urbanisation. Vitrum products were retailed through select stores and by the early 1960s, it had diversified to include an exhibition hall and gallery space. It is thought that the Central Cottage Industries Emporium (headed by craft revivalist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay) also commissioned Vitrum pieces. “The verso side of some of the tiles mention how each piece was ‘one of a kind by an Indian artist’, like a work of art,” says Vaish.

Drawn from the collections of patrons like Haresh Mehta, Pheroza Godrej and Jamshyd Godrej, the Pundole family, Ravi Cunha, the estate of Penelope Estabrook Mirchandani and JNAF’s own trove, the exhibition features 102 works. Of these, 51 are Narayan’s, while the rest showcase pieces by lesser-known artists associated with the Vitrum movement such as Vijoo Sadwelkar, M Afsar and SAM Kazi. Narayan’s works from this period depict animals, birds and cityscapes while others portray mythological stories—including a glass mosaic recreating a scene from the Last Supper and an intricately designed floor lamp—showing that he was always a consummate storyteller. “Badri Narayan’s aesthetic outlook, partly influenced by John Ruskin, William Morris, and the Arts and Crafts movement of England, found fertile ground in the Vitrum project,” explains Vaish, adding that he envisioned the studio as more than just an experimental space.

“He saw it as a potential catalyst for integrating art with architecture to introduce public murals on building facades as a regular practice. Citing the Mexican Mural Movement and America’s Federal Art Projects, Narayan believed such efforts could foster ‘a new national consciousness of art’ in the young republic of India,” she says, pointing out that some of Narayan’s oil paintings reveal techniques that he might have picked up during his long years at Vitrum such as “burnishing and scratching the painted canvas to create fine lines and in some ceramic works the glaze is applied to give a water-colour effect”. This suggests a crossover between his ceramic and painting practices.

Founded in 1957 by a Jewish war émigré from Poland, Simon Lifschutz and his wife Hanna, the Vitrum Studio (later renamed Hexamar Studio) was housed in a rented bungalow in the tony Cumballa Hill neighbourhood, while the couple’s glass factory was further afield in Vikhroli. It invited artists to paint on ceramic tiles and create affordable glass mosaic tesserae inspired by Venetian glassware and home decor products such as trays, coasters, tabletops and lamps. The factory in Vikhroli supplied the raw materials for glass mosaics while the studio provided artists with high-quality glazes and a small kiln for baking and setting the glaze colours on the ceramics. The well-equipped Vitrum quickly became a playground for a number of young artists from Bombay’s growing art circle, including KK Hebbar, FN Souza, B Prabha, Vijoo Sadwelkar, KH Ara and B Vithal, where they found “freedom
to explore their own aesthetics within the medium”, informs a wall text at
the gallery.

Although many of these artists were graduates from Bombay’s Sir JJ School of Art, Narayan (born in 1929 in Secunderabad) was not formally trained. Yet, his ceramic pieces and glass mosaics on display in the exhibition show an accomplished mind and hand at work.

Narayan, who died in 2013 aged 84, had his first exhibition in 1949. Also a printmaker, illustrator, teacher and a writer, he was the first artist to start working at Vitrum Studio and remained there as a ‘chief artist’ from the beginning till the end. From his written excerpts that adorn the exhibition, it can be deduced that he was passionate not only about art but was also a strong proponent of public art, hoping that people from all walks of life could enjoy it.

As Vaish and her team began researching for this show, they realised that Narayan’s writings and Vitrum Studio’s model of supporting artists, while creating inexpensive decorative objects, prefigures today’s debates about sustaining traditional crafts in modern markets and the role of design in economic development. “One of the strains of this exhibition is to draw attention to the vexed question of public art and encourage a critical evaluation of public art today,” says Vaish, adding that along the way they traced many important murals in Mumbai to Vitrum Studio. Some of these discoveries are showcased as photographs and writings in a section of the exhibition. “We’ve included photographs of lost and a few existing murals that Badri Narayan documented in his writings,” says Vaish, adding, “Artist Jatin Das confirmed his glass mosaic mural on the Dena Bank building used Vitrum materials, with Badri Narayan’s involvement.” Though now demolished, a photograph of the mural can be seen in the exhibition. For Vaish, these overlooked histories are important because they demonstrate the need to expand “the canon of Indian Art beyond established narratives”.

(Glazed History: Badri Narayan and the Vitrum Studio is on view at JNAF
gallery, Mumbai, till August 31)