JEHANGIR NICHOLSON ART FOUNDATION
Part I: 18th August – 3rd October 2016
Part II: 14th October – 31st December 2016
Laxman Shreshtha is one of the most distinguished abstractionists practising in India. The Infinite Project traces a retrospective arc across his career from the early 1960s to the present. Fittingly, it draws on the collection of Jehangir Nicholson, who was a close friend of the artist and a dedicated champion of his work. The Nicholson Collection boasts 49 of Shreshtha’s works, arguably one of the most substantial representations of the artist’s oeuvre over a span of fifty years.
The Infinite Project is a viewing platform, from which to survey the various phases of the journey that Shreshtha has made since his student years at the Sir J. J. School of Art, Bombay; the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, the Academie de la Grande Chaumiere, and S W Hayter’s Atelier 17, Paris; the Central School of Art, London; and his first exhibition, held at the Taj Art Gallery in 1963.
Structured in two phases, this exhibition presented Shreshtha’s trajectory along a chronological axis, from 1963 to 1988 and from 1988 to the present. It was punctuated by annotations concerning various dimensions of the artist’s work: his understanding of abstraction as a departure from landscape; the dyadic interplay between pattern and discontinuity in his art; his play with scale, from the miniature to the monumental; his alternation between compositional and improvisational methods; his more recent use of the painted space itself as a studio, a site for trying out formal and conceptual alternatives, and even for questioning abstraction. It invited viewers into the universe of Shreshtha’s intellectual and cultural references, as well as into the vibrant milieu of Mumbai artists and writers that he has inhabited.
Exhibition Catalogue:
Laxman Shreshtha: The Infinite Project
Price: 500.00 (Shipping cost not included)
Year of publication: 2022
Size: 27 x 22 cms
Type: Paperback
Pages: 76 pages
ISBN: 978-81-928046-7-5
To purchase: Write to us at connect@jnaf.org
Laxman Shreshtha was born in Siraha, Nepal in 1939, and had an extensive education: The University of Bihar, Patna; the J.J. School of Art; the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts, Paris; and the Central School of Art, London. In the Parisian tradition of the atélier, he also studied at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and with the legendary print-maker Stanley William Hayter at Atélier 17.
Shreshtha began his career as a figurative artist but gradually moved onto abstract works. Coming from an aristocratic Nepalese family and ending up a struggling art student on the brink of starvation, resulted in him embarking on a spiritual quest, which has continuously been reflected in his work. He looked for answers to his early existentialist dilemmas in books on Western philosophy. Later, he turned to the Upanishads and to Buddhism and his paintings reflect these experiences.
Shreshtha’s abstract works are greatly inspired by landscapes, and sometimes echo the mountain peaks of his native home, Nepal; the pristine white light sears through the dense opacity of colour, creating dazzling effects. His desire to capture the expanse of the Himalayas allowed him to create his large-scale world. Shreshtha’s works are both sensuous and meditative in their shifts and balances of colour. There is an intermingling of vivid blues, yellows, reds, oranges, and browns. He is greatly inspired by Jazz and classical music and listens to it while he paints.
Since the early 1960s, Shreshtha has held numerous solo exhibitions of his works, and has also been represented in major curated exhibitions, both in India and internationally. He has been the recipient of many awards, fellowships, and honours, including the French Government Scholarship, the British Council Grant, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD, Germany) residency.
Since the 1980s, Shreshtha has led an isolated life. He lives and works in Bombay.
