At first glance, Atul Dodiya’s ongoing solo exhibition at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, titled Radio Ceylon Paintings: Vol. I, feels rather anachronistic in a contemporary art gallery. With its markedly classical approach, the show makes no evident gestures to be recognized as art du jour. Yet, on closer inspection, one realizes that Dodiya has precisely retraced the steps which have made him relevant and well-known as a contemporary artist. He has dipped into popular culture, chosen painting as his medium of expression, and as he has often done, visually eulogized those who have inspired him.
Ranjit Hoskote, in his curatorial essay accompanying Dodiya’s major survey at NGMA New Delhi in 2013, noted how the artist has invented an autobiographical genealogy for himself through his imaginative labour, based on the recognition of the “presence of the past.” In the current Chemould exhibition as well, the artist has revisited Bollywood to render around 125 commemorative portraits of singers, composers, lyricists, poets, musicians and directors from the 1940, ’50s and ’60s, whom he learnt to appreciate in his formative years, and continues to nostalgically rediscover today.
The golden voices which personify that era, like Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhonsle, Kishore Kumar, Mohammad Rafi, Mukesh, Talat Mahmood and Geeta Dutt, are all prominently in attendance. Also acknowledged are music directors like the father-son duo of Sachin and Rahul Dev Burman, Shankar-Jaikishan and Naushad; and noted poet-lyricists like Shakeel Badayuni, Majrooh Sultanpuri, Kaifi Azmi and Shailendra. They are flanked by many others who were adored by earlier generations but have now been forgotten. An intriguing moniker that buzzes out of the crowd is Chic Chocolate (born Antonio Xavier Vaz), a Goa-born jazz musician who played the trumpet and made his mark as a composer in the swinging ’50s.
The exhibition starts by spotlighting a set of incredible women. The first portrait is that of Saraswati Devi (born Khorshed Minocher-Homji), who was the first female music director in Hindi cinema. Next to her is Jaddanbai, the mother of the actress Nargis, who was another trailblazing composer in her own right. The other striking image is that of Shanta Apte from the movie poster of her 1938 film, Gopal Krishna, which used mythology to create social awareness against the British. Apte is known to have waged a hunger strike at the gate of Prabhat Studios, when the latter tried to renege on her contract. Other personalities featured across the gallery include Suraiya, Shamshad Begum, Amirbai Karnataki, Sulochana Chavan, Surinder Kaur and Noor Jehan.
A section that conjures what ifs is the series on artists who moved to Pakistan after partition. Prominent among them is Ghulam Haider, who championed Lata Mangeshkar in her early years; and Noor Jehan, who developed her wings under Haider’s mentorship and enjoyed a lifelong friendship with Mangeshkar. Haider is noted for also having introduced singers like Begum and Kaur.
The third strand that emerges from the works is the disproportionately large number of artists from eastern India, who helped solidify the foundations of music in Indian cinema - first, in late colonial Kolkata, and then in Bombay, where the axis of influence shifted to after independence. For example, there are music directors like Raichand Boral and Pankaj Mullick, credited for contributing the first playback song in Hindi cinema through the 1935 film Dhoop Chaon. Singer and composer Anil Biswas is paired with his wife cum playback singer, Meena Kapoor. Placed below him is his sister Parul Ghosh. Then there is Krishna Chandra Dey, the blind vocalist, who I discovered was the first music teacher of S.D. Burman and the uncle of Manna Dey. The list goes on.
If one is willing to go down unexpected rabbit holes, it can be a heady trivial pursuit through Wikipedia pages, IMDB listings and songs on YouTube. To make things more familiar, Dodiya has chosen to paint from well-known reference images of his subjects and grouped them curatorially to engender connections. The artist’s academic approach to portraiture is influenced by his training at the J.J. School of Art, Bombay. In most cases, he uses either earthy sepia tones or bluish grey tints to evoke a sense of nostalgia. Against that, he outlines key facial features in high contrast, and deploys darker tones to achieve respectable realism without the need for significant detailing. Exhibited along with these “head and shoulder” bust portraits are 15 frozen scenes from the movies where some of their memorable songs were picturized -- a throwback to Dodiya’s 2023 exhibition at the same gallery.
Ultimately, to visit the exhibition and to see only an assortment of old chestnuts is missing the wood for the trees. In sharing his deep sense of nostalgia with us, the contemporary artist in Dodiya has revealed the progressive underpinnings of early Bollywood. Whether it is through the portrayal of firebrand women, who fought for due recognition in a patriarchal setup, or of gifted maestros from minority and migrant communities, who resiliently chose Bombay as their home during the tumult of partition and after, the exhibition weaves in social commentary of a time when the rigour of classical music embraced the freedom of contemporary expression, much like Dodiya’s practice has endeavoured to do for more than four decades.
Radio Ceylon Paintings: Vol. I is on at Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai, from January 9 to February 22, 2025.
Anindo Sen is an independent art writer, researcher and curator based in Bengaluru.