The custodian of our culture

Strap: Every work of Haku Shah (1934 – 2019) reflects the simplicity of his life and times

Amit Sengupta

The Kiran Nadar Museum of Art is holding a landmark retrospective show of an eminent Gandhian painter, photographer, crafts archivist and artist, perhaps the only one of his kind, ‘Iss ghat antar baag bagiche’ as homage to Haku Shah (1934 – 2019). His contribution in the preservation of his collection of artefacts of vernacular arts, gathered by this reticent and humble, almost invisible artist through rigoruous research across India is a virtual treasure trove in Indian art. Haku Shah meticulously documented varied cultural expressions of the rural arts and crafts, objects, techniques and processes of creative work, with a focus on education and knowledge gathering and dissemination. He was an iconic and old-fashioned cultural anthropologist with an archivist’s zest and values. His contribution to the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, Shilpa Gram in Udaipur and several important and cutting edge exhibitions is legendary. Mentored by famous artist-pedagogue KG Subramanyan, Sankho Chaudhuri and NS Bendre at the Faculty of Fine Arts in Baroda, Haku Shah’s artistic passage, sought and created harmonious relationship between object, technique and concept.

Around 80 works from the Haku Shah archive, including paintings, terracotta sculptures, textile scrolls, books, journals and periodicals, will be displayed in the exhibition which is on till January 10. The works uses multi-media, oil on canvas, mix media collages, colour pencil, sketches and ink drawings on postcards.

Influenced by the philosophical and spiritual traditions and narratives of the secular 15th-century Bhakti and Sufi poetry and verses, and in synthesis with modern and classical literature, music, art, creative and social expressions, Haku Shah’s repertoire is miscellaneous and varied in its originality and energy. Some of the classical and modern works are being exhibited for the first time. It includes his collaboration with musician and vocalist Shubha Mudgal and the show ‘Haman hain Ishq’ (2002). There is also a called ‘Noor Gandhi Ka Maeri Nazar Main’ (1997), Nitya Gandhi/ Living Reliving Gandhi (2004) and ‘Maanush’ (2007) which embodies the finest ethics, sensibilities and principles of humanism and Gandhian values.

Haku Shah was born in the village of Valod, Gujarat to Vajubhai and Vadanben. He grew up in an era of the pulsating non-violent freedom struggle. He lived and propagated the Gandhian way of life. He participated in satygrahas, lived in Gandhian ashrams and was a dogged freedom fighter. He studied at the prestigious Faculty of Fine Arts, Maharaja Sayajirao University in Baroda, during the phase of 1955-59.

He started creative work when he was young, made copies of portraits of Gandhi celebrating the the freedom movement. The open and free atmosphere at Baroda helped him grow into an interdisciplinary and versatile mind. Haku Shah taught at a Gandhian Swaraj ashram, Vedchhi, in Surat district of Gujarat, and since then the handspun yarn became an important expression of his artistic persona.

Dr. Stella Kramrisch invited Shah to curate the seminal exhibition ‘Unknown India’ while he was associated with the NID in 1967. The tribal museum at Gujarat Vidyapeeth in Ahmedabad, founded by Mahatma Gandhi, was also an important project where he worked. He has been a faculty at the School of Architecture, Ahmedabad, and a Regent Professor at University of California, Davis. He was awarded the Padma Shri, Kala Ratna, Kala Shiromani, Gagan Abani Puraskar and fellowships like the Rockefeller Fellowship and the Nehru Fellowship, for his life time of brilliant work celebrating the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi and the values of the freedom struggle. Haku Shah passed away 21 March, 2019.

Every work of Haku Shah, like the theme of hand-woven material, reflects the simplicity of his life and times. He remained a stoic and dogged believer in humble living, shunning both fame and prosperity and basically his art was a reflection of his life. His famous portrait of Gandhi, his face alive within the charkha, is an embodiment of the simplicity of his craft, while giving powerful message. Has the country trapped him in this charkha, his body, mind, politics and philosophy, and is not allowing him to be liberated, the painting seems to say.

Similarly, Kabir is his classic, in black and white and colours, with Kabir celebrating a moment of upliftment with the birds who fly around like symbols of freedom.