The Artist as A Quiet Creator | Arundhaty Nayar

BOOK REVIEW
 

Leela Mukherjee A Guileless Modernist 
Edited by: R Siva Kumar
2024 | Pages: 207 | Price: Rs 2000
ISBN: 9788196580391
Published by Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation & Tulika Books
 

 
The book, A Guileless Modernist, is published by the Mrinalini Mukherjee Foundation, and edited by R Siva Kumar who is an Indian contemporary art historian, critique and curator. This is a well-compiled narration of the life and work of artist Leela Mukherjee, a contemporary of Amrita Sher-Gill, Pilloo Pochkhanawala, Joyce Eta Usha Joseph (Usha Rani Hooja), Mangala Bai Thampuratty, Rani Pooviah, Anila Jacob and several others.
 
Born in Karachi (1916-2002) Leela Mukherjee was a first generation Indian woman artist and a pioneer in her own right.
She has created an extensive body of work as an artist and sculptor, working with Wood and Bronze. As a prolific sculptor she held several solo exhibitions between 1957 and 1989. 

She was educated at the National Girls School, Banaras, and Kala Bhavana Shantiniketan. She met her husband, the already established Benode Behari Mukherjee, at Shantiniketan. She was committed to her art and worked with singular dedication through the years in close proximity to both her husband and daughter Mrinalini Mukherjee. 

In Nepal, Leela studied wood and stone carving under the well-known Nepali artisan-craftsperson Kulasunder Shilakarmi, which guided her work. We are told that her life was surrounded by artists of repute such as Ramkinkar Baij , Sankho Chaudhury, Devi Prasad Roy Choudhury and many others. This book is compiled from the contributions of essays by many artists, researchers, and art historians who knew Leela Mukherjee personally during her lifetime.
 
In spite of the absence of any systemic chronicling of the artist’s work, from the few publications that exist and conversations with fellow artists of her time, the story-telling that unfolds gives us a perspective of who she was and her struggles and perseverance, and quiet achievements. 

From the collection of images represented in the book we see that Leela Mukherjee also explored other mediums and worked with water colour, pastel and sketch pen in paper. We learn that she experimented in mediums such as textile and steel too. Her sculptures in steel plate and bronze represent dancers, runners and many beautifully-animated figures. At one point she also sculpted toys. 
 
Human and animal forms influenced her work and from her drawings and sketches represented in the book, we gather that mobility and animated movements were an area of particular interest. However, most of her work was an abstract representation of figures. 
 
We learn about Leela Mukherjee’s early education at the Theosophical School at Benares which was set up by Anne Besant and was the first institute in the country to adopt the Montessori method of education. 

She was exposed to the teachings of Anne Besant and J Krishnamoorthy. This inspired her to start her own school and later to join as an Art teacher at the Welham Preparatory School at Dehradun. A glimpse of the artist’s work during her teaching years and her role as an educator has been well presented through interviews of her students and colleagues. 

A sincere attempt has been made to delve into her contributions as an Art teacher in a time when structured Art education in schools were not the norm. Therefore, in this too, Leela Mukherjee was a pioneer. Interviews with the Principal, Mrs Kain and her ex-student Jagjit Singh and several others are worth a read. 
 
Experimenting with a different medium, Leela created several Murals at the school using egg tempura which decorates the Welham school to this day. 

The book explores Leela’s life and time at Shantiniketan, and at the time, her relationship with the older and established artist, Benode Behari Mukherjee and gives us an insight to her own personality, sketching for us images of her lively, animated character, her strong individuality and steadfast dedication to her art practice. 
 
Leela Mukherjee shared her apartment with Ranbir Kaleka who was a contemporary of her daughter Mrinalini. He talks about the wonderful times they spent together in her later years and gives the reader a glimpse of her personality and relationship with other artists. 
 
The artworks represented in the book is from the National Gallery of Modern Art, and the Mrinalini Foundation has a corpus of sculptures made by Leela Mukherjee . 

A genuine attempt has been made to analyse the various influences that could have guided her art practice. Shanay Javeri 
discusses her work at different junctures of her life and tries to position Leela Mukherjee’s art – whether in the context of folk influences from the North-East and then beyond, all the way to Egyptian sculpting and Mexican folk sculptures – extending her inspirations beyond South Asian style of sculpting, finally arriving at global modernism with a true individual sensibility. Her primary body of work, though, is as a sculptor working with wood and bronze. 
 
This is apparent from the collection of representative images presented of her sculptures and paintings in the book. This well- researched documentation of her work attempts to give her the recognition she deserves in the contemporary Art world. 

(Reviewer Arundhaty Nayar is an Architect and Trustee of the Kerala Museum of History and Contemporary Art, Madhavan Nayar Foundation, 
Cochin. www.keralamuseum.org)