Madhubala to Madhuri...
RANA SIDDIQUI
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Kolkata-based artist Wasim Kapoor recently paid tribute to film actresses through his portraits.
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TRIBUTE TO FILM ICONS Wasim Kapoor's portraits received positive response in Kolkata.
Many summers ago in 1936, when veteran actress Kanan Devi showed her legs - up to the knees - in "Mukti", the audiences broke the seats of the cinema hall in anger. Now 76 years later Bipasha's Basu's show of full legs in "Jism" doesn't evoke that rage. Instead, it gets its own share of admirers. The reason, film trade analysts cite, is a revolution begun by daring film actresses of yore, the fruit of which is being enjoyed by the new generation actresses today. Same is the case with art. As veteran painter Jahangir Sabawala proclaims, "The young generation of artists is eating the fruit of our labour."
So if they say that behind the success of a woman, there is the struggle of a generation of women, one shouldn't be too shocked. That is what famous artist from Kolkata Wasim Kapoor believes. And to spread this message, he recently painted a series of 60 film actresses from Kanan Devi to Bipasha Basu to pay a tribute to "their great contribution to Indian cinema and also to celebrate 75 successful years of Hindi cinema".
The 51-year-old artist's spell-binding portraits in oil have Meena Kumari, Waheeda Rehman, Geeta Bali, Madhubala, Sharmila Tagore, Rekha, Madhuri Dixit to Preity Zinta and Kareena Kapoor and many others. He painted them from their photographs. He got the right pictures "after lots of struggle". An exhibition of these portraits titled Shades of Time was unveiled at Taj Bengal hotel in Kolkata for only three-and-a-half hours this past week. The show was organised by Raas Innovations in Kolkata, an art hub that will appear as an exclusive art gallery near Kolkata's Salt Lake stadium. Pradeep Rawat, the gallery's founder, promises it will have a complete archive on art including books, research material and websites, apart from regular seminars and discussions on art. These portraits by Kapoor form a personal collection of Rawat that he intends to bring to Delhi art lovers also.
Not easy
Kapoor, who has portrayed "Burqua", on suppressed women in veil inspired by the Khomanei regime in Iran, "Rickshaw" on rickshaw pullers of Kolkata and "Nude", a series on women's beauty, reveals that coming out with this series wasn't easy. Recalls this Lucknow-born artist, "When I thought of making such a series on cultural icons, the most difficult thing for me was to get their pictures. With utmost difficulty I got Suchitra Sen and Waheeda Rahman's picture. The pictures that I used to get, never had that effect I wanted to produce on my canvases. To bring a cultural ethos in Rekha's portrayal of `Umrao Jaan', I painted it in black and white. These three actresses were the most difficult to paint, for they have certain unknown magical element not easy to bring on the canvas."
Kapoor doesn't deny that anything attached to film celebrities fetches instant success. But he has something to add: "Making portraits of film actors/ actresses may win an artist instant notice, but people (read art lovers) fail to realise that they have made a major contribution to the entertainment industry. So why shouldn't they be brought to the canvas too? We paint places and things we love or feel affected by, I paint actresses. No one noticed greatly when I made my `Victim' and `Burqua' series, but these portraits got recognition from people."
This student of masters like Suhas Roy, Atul Bose and Debiprasad Roychowdhury is now all set to make portraits of Bollywood's male icons soon.
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