How painter Bhupen Khakhar fanned controversy into fame

Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003) may not be as well-known to common man as MF Husain, SH Raza and Jamini Roy but he is very well-known to even lay admirers of art in India. He played a seminal role in the shaping of modern Indian art with his unique figurative style; Tate Modern called him 'a key international figure in 20th century painting'

He is remembered for his courage as much for the depiction of bravado in his art - he was the first Indian artist to publicly come out as a homosexual in 1980s, way before it became acceptable to even discuss the issue in public. And he did not hold back his brush in depicting the same on his canvases

Archana Khare-Ghose

When the hallowed London art 'temple', Tate Modern, held a major show on Bhupen Khakhar in 2016, titled 'you can't please all,' a big row had erupted in the public domain on the very credentials of Khakhar as a modern, A-list artist. The Indians - art frats and others - were obviously, livid.

The row was born after The Guardian art critic Jonathan Jones wrote a highly disparaging review of the show on 31 May, 2016, in the newspaper, just a day before it opened. The write-up was riddled with uncamouflaged insults. To give an example from the article: "Why are we supposed to be interested in this old-fashioned, second-rate artist whose paintings are stuck in a timewrap of 1980s neo-figurative cliché?"

Indian art connoisseurs were undoubtedly, infuriated and they, too, went public denouncing Jones' article and upholding Khakhar's name and honour.

In what seemed like a them-and-us divide in the mind of the art critic - as he mentioned Tate Modern not bestowing the same honour on top British artists Howard Hodgkin, David Hockney and Frank Auerbach - the debate that followed too veered off the course and ended up being a question of precedence of nations (something that some Brits continue to suffer from long after the setting of the sun on Britain's colonial empire).

However, what the entire rigmarole managed to achieve was bring a bright spotlight on Bhupen Khakhar the artist. The Tate Modern show was meant to do just that; it got generous help from The Guardian's critic in whose denunciation of the show lay the question the entire art world even beyond India was found asking - 'Who is Bhupen Khakhar?'

Who is Bhupen Khakhar?

Bhupen Khakhar (1934-2003) may not be as well-known to common man as MF Husain, SH Raza and Jamini Roy but he is very well-known to even lay admirers of art in India. He played a seminal role in the shaping of modern Indian art with his unique figurative style; Tate Modern called him 'a key international figure in 20th century painting.'

A trained chartered accountant, he started painting after joining MS University Baroda's renowned Faculty of Arts for a course in art appreciation. Soon, he made a name for himself in the influential Baroda circles, winning critics and admirers for his work in fellow artists such as Gulammohammed Sheikh and Amit Ambalal, to name a few.

He is remembered for his courage as much for the depiction of bravado in his art - he was the first Indian artist to publicly come out as a homosexual in 1980s, way before it became acceptable to even discuss the issue in public. And he did not hold back his brush in depicting the same on his canvases.

Unfortunately, he passed away just around the time Indian art market started coming into its own to acquire the shape it boasts of now. However, international recognition by way of big shows had begun in his lifetime, even though at the fag end - a seminal retrospective was held at Museo Nacional, Centre de Art, Reina Sofia in Madrid in 2002, and another one at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, the next year when he breathed his last.

Scaling up the graph

Whenever an artist's graph starts rising on the market, there is always a complex web of both market and extraneous factors behind the northward pull. It is not without reason that slowly, market interest in Bhupen Khakhar's work has been rising, reaching a crescendo last autumn in the western hemisphere when two records for his most expensive works were set within a space of a month.

At Christie's South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art auction in New York on September 22, 2021, Khakhar's 1967 work, Untitled (Tree in a Walled Garden), fetched $990,000 (approx. Rs 7.3 crore), in a stunning show as the price realized was nearly the double of its highest pre-auction estimate of $500,000. Within a month, at Sotheby's Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art auction in London on October 26, Khakhar's 1972 oil on canvas, Krishna Hotel, became the top-grossing work in the sale, fetching £1,225,000 (estimate £200,000 – £400,000) or Rs 12.30 crore. It became not only the most expensive Khakhar work ever sold, but also got the art world to sit up and take notice as it bested its own estimate by 300 per cent.

Even in March 2021, at Christie's South Asian Modern + Contemporary Art online auction, Khakhar's 1989 watercolour on paper work, Untitled (Man), had fetched $37,500 (approx. Rs 27 lakh) against the pre-auction estimate of $10,000 – $15,000 (approx. Rs 7.4 lakh – Rs 11.1 lakh). That just goes on to show the remarkable interest the market is currently showing in Khakhar's oeuvre.

Though the line-up for the next big auctions - the Spring sales, both in India and in the western capitals - are not declared yet, it is a fair guess to expect some superlative works by Khakhar to appear across the sales.

Success abroad

It cannot be denied that the Tate Modern retrospective of Bhupen Khakhar has helped pushed the seminal artist's graph unusually, with or without the deprecating review in The Guardian.

As is often the case in India, recognition abroad is the surest way to stardom in the country than a purely indigenous achievement can guarantee. It has happened in fields too many to list and the world of art is no exception. Bhupen Khakhar, too, who was well-received in the Indian art circles and collected by serious buyers in his lifetime, is now commanding unparalleled prices for the same reason.

While the debate is open on the right and wrong of 'the foreign-blessed' attitude towards all Indian achievements, it is a matter of great prestige that quite a few other Indian masters are being pulled out of the shadows and getting retrospectives in important museums of the world. This not only helps bring spotlight on their seminal contributions to Indian and global art but also integrates Indian art more with the global blue-chip commodity that art is. After all, modern Indian art is not just a geographical indicator of art from India, but is as global in its approach, methods and styles as any frontline art from the art capitals of the world. So, why should not it have more global buyers?

VS Gaitonde, the most expensive Indian artist on the market for more than a decade now; Nasreen Mohamedi, the reticent abstractionist; Mrinalini Mukherjee, the non-conformist sculptor… are just a few examples of how seminal shows abroad brought widespread global focus on their already celebrated and valued works. And whether some critic likes it or not, art was never meant to play to the gallery. Thus, Bhupen Khakhar's Tate Modern show was very aptly named after one of his paintings, 'you can't please all."

(The writer is a New Delhi-based editor, writer and arts consultant. She blogs at www.archanakhareghose.com)