Indian artist Benode Behari Mukherjee's collages after his loss of sight from 1950s-60s will be focus of an upcoming exhibition in London.
Set to open on January 9 at the David Zwirner gallery, "Benode Behari Mukherjee: After Sight" will be the first solo presentation in Europe devoted to Mukherjee.
Mukherjee was born with impaired vision but with family's help he studied Asian, and eastern art practices and traditions, Kala Bhavana, the fine-arts institute founded by Rabindranath Tagore in Shantiniketan. Born blind in one eye and myopic in the other, the artist lost his eyesight completely in 1957. He went to Japan in 1936 and worked in Northern India and Nepal. After losing sight he came back to Kala Bhavana to teach art history and later becoming the academy's Principal and Proferssor Emeritus.
David Zwirner gallery in a statement told an Indian news agency, "Rather than ceasing to produce visual art, Mukherjee expanded his practice, continuing not only to create drawings but also to explore more tactile media, such as sculpture and especially collage.”
On view at the show will be a range of these late period collages. Also on view will be a selection of the artist's felt-tip pen and charcoal drawings. The exhibition has been organised in collaboration with Delhi's Vadehra Art Gallery that represents the estate of the artist. Several of the works on view will also be on loan from the collection of the Delhi's Kiran Nadar Museum of Art. The exhibition will continue till February 22.
