First published on 23rd August 2024
Rich, storied, diverse -- Mumbai’s art history is as all-encompassing as the city’s own character. It has made space for a variety of legacies, from the first press committed to producing lithographic prints of Raja Ravi Varma’s paintings, [1] to M.F. Husain’s days as a designer of children’s furniture. [2] Arguably, its most memorable chapter remains the emergence of the Bombay Progressive Artists’ Group (BPAG), whose influence continues to inspire research and scholarship (most recently seen in a biography of German emigre, Rudolph von Leyden, who championed the BPAG’s S.H. Raza and Krishen Khanna). [3]
While acknowledging this powerful and colourful tapestry, it is worth examining what is left out or forgotten, and the reasons for these disappearances from art historical discourse. An exhibition at Colaba’s Chatterjee & Lal gallery, which brought together the works of painters Rustom Siodia (1881-1946) and his daughter Cumi Dallas (1907-1973), provides an opportunity to ponder these questions.
The Bombay-born Parsi Siodia, was known for his landscapes and portraits, and was regarded as a Salon artist [4] following in the footsteps of Ravi Varma and M.V. Dhurandar. His daughter, Dallas, also joined the profession, and came to be recognized for her portraiture, exhibiting in India and England. The duo had enviable credentials: Dallas’ painting of Madam Cama was installed in the Indian Parliament, and it is said that the Queen of Iran also sat for her. Siodia, who had a studio at Grant Road and later at Jogeshwari, was commissioned as part of a contingent to paint murals for Delhi’s Imperial Secretariat, the building that would later be known as Rashtrapati Bhavan. Why, then, do we know so little about their careers and see nothing of their output in Mumbai’s galleries?
The gallerists, Mortimer Chatterjee and Tara Lal, explain: “Siodia’s apprenticeship was in the tradition of Victorian education both in Bombay and in Britain, whilst Dallas was a product of the Bombay Revival school of painting… However, by the early 1960s, critical discourse would come to perceive the styles practised by both artists as unfashionable.” They add: “Subsequent to their demise [Siodia died in 1946, Dallas in 1973], there was no one to champion the work and little appreciation of the achievements they had secured during their own careers.”
The gallerists first learnt of the duo in March 2018, when a mutual friend introduced them to the artists’ descendants. The exhibition Resemblance assumes a special place in the gallery’s programming; it brings forth various aspects of the full careers of two artists related by blood, who were key representatives of the art movements they belonged to.
We learn that Siodia had a wry, observational sense of humour, brought alive through graphite and ink cartoon sketches about enabling dentists and courtroom scenes. In Dallas’ depictions of city scenes, we see glimpses of history -- from the ghastly explosion at the Bombay docks in 1944, to a view of the Babulnath temple and the homes surrounding it, before urban sprawl and concrete took over the city.
There is an intersection of their careers as art students that particularly stands out. It tells us not just about their individual genius, but also about the institution they trained at -- the Sir Jamsetjee Jeejeebhoy School of Art, which emerged as the island city’s premier art school. Even though it is Siodia’s enrolment at London’s Royal Academy -- as the second Indian and first Parsi to boast of this honour - and his training under John Singer Sargent that finds mention in biographies, the early signs of his artistic talents were first seen and honed during his student days at the J.J. School.
Chatterjee and Lal recount that at the time, painter Cecil Burns was the director. They further mention: “Even after his time in London…Siodia remained committed to academic realism.” “In the mid-1920s, he wrote a series of scathing letters to the editor of the Times of India, in which he defends the style of painting imparted at Sir J.J. School of Art earlier in the century and attacks the work of artist Samuel Fyzee Rahamin, who was closer to the artists of the Bengal School, and, for that matter, the Bombay Revivalists, who would become a dominant group by the late 1920s and early 1930s.”
Though we do not know of Dallas’ perception of her alma mater, the works she produced in the 1930s and ’50s -- inspired by Indian miniatures, Renaissance paintings and the Ajanta caves -- evidence the impact of Jagannath Murlidhar Ahivasi, who taught Indian mural painting. Chatterjee & Lal’s curation for Resemblance includes two of Dallas’ portraits of Ahivasi; one tempera work, which imagines him in red robes, is particularly striking.
Meditating on the show’s title, the gallerists say that Dallas was something of a shape-shifter, switching between Ahivasi’s lessons and drawing on her own father’s style, based on the circumstances. They point out: “We have examples in the exhibition where Dallas was clearly influenced by her father’s training in academic realism. This is particularly the case in paintings of the same landscapes by daughter and father.” Another shared passion was the Ajanta site; where Siodia re-imagined it as a “quasi-Achaemenid architectural structure”, [5] Dallas and her fellow Bombay Revivalists were fascinated by its frescos.
The resemblances are, indeed, unmissable. A study of two untitled works -- Untitled (Landscape) (1924) and Untitled (Forest Clearing) (Undated) -- by Siodia and Dallas respectively, reveals similar colour palettes, the same lightness of touch, and an underlying sense of tranquillity. The vantage points may be different, as Siodia set his eyes on the bucolic English outdoors, while Dallas’ paintings feature palm trees and other tropical flora. But the artists depicting them are bound together by blood and imagination -- honed, inspired, considered.
Resemblance: The Art of Rustom Siodia and Cumi Dallas was on at Chatterjee & Lal, Mumbai, from July 12 to August 24, 2024.
Neerja Deodhar is a Mumbai-based journalist and educator.
Notes
[1] Neerja Deodhar, “A King in Our Streets,” Mid-Day, November 26, 2023.
[2] Neerja Deodhar, “MF Husain said, Sweet Dreams!,” Mid-Day, November 19, 2023.
[3] The Catalyst: Rudolph von Leyden and India’s Artistic Awakening (New Delhi: Speaking Tiger, 2024).
[4] “Rustom Siodia’s Retrospective Show Exhibits Realism and Fantasy,” MASH.
[5] Ibid.