At 83, Anjolie Ela Menon is as enthusiastic as a child about her love for her work and her passion for painting. The globally recognised artist’s solo show in Mumbai after nine years, "Anjolie The Wanton Fabulist", is on till March at the Art Musings gallery in Mumbai's Colaba. In an exclusive conversation at the gallery, Menon talks about her work, the booming art market, AI in art, being a woman in a largely male-dominated field, and more. Edited excerpts:
Tell us all about "Anjolie The Wanton Fabulist". One sees brilliant greens, turquoises, ochers, and richer browns in these art works.
It takes me a lot now at this age to put together a body of work big enough for a solo show. Sometimes, I feel that I won’t be having many more solo shows. I can’t stop painting because I am so driven to paint, but to put together a big body of work is not easy. It takes a lot of time and energy. I used to paint for around five hours a day, but I paint for only two or three hours now. So this exhibition is a feat in a way. It is about a year’s work. And it's not until that you actually see the work in the gallery, see it lit, that one realises that I burst into colour this time. Slightly different from the old more sombre brown works.
What prompted this change?
I don’t know. I didn’t realise this until I saw my works together that my colours have changed. After all, you paint one painting at a time, not realising how the body of work is going to turn out. So this is a moment for me.
You are having a solo show in Mumbai after nine years. Bombay always had a special place in your life and career. Tell us about it.
I never planned this exhibition. It is like a mini retrospective because there are some old themes that have recurred. There are some new themes, so I am reliving some of my earliest inspirations in this exhibition. This is an important exhibition for me after nine years in Bombay. Bombay was the crucible of art as far as I was concerned. This is where I started by career and where my career was nurtured. The early exhibitions in Taj Gallery and Chemould Gallery really made my name at that stage.
Why has the crow been such an important a part of many of your works? What about it intrigues you?
The crow crept into my work when I was living in Bombay in the navy flats. I used to paint in my small balcony and this particular crow would come every day. I would keep a piece of bread for him. One day he just jumped into my painting and there he has remained ever since. In Bombay, there are many more crows here than in Delhi. And I find that he is a friend, a very urban creature, extremely intelligent and very human.
Over the years do you feel your work has changed much?
Well, in my very early works I used to be criticised that they were very European oriented, but it was only after I came back and was married into a Kerala family that the Indian element and the Indian subject matters came to my work. Of course, there have always been my women relatives, friends, sisters and aunts who feature in my work and now my three granddaughters and a grandson are there. The people who are close tend to occur in the paintings though I don’t do it purposely. I remember one series of paintings that looked very much like my younger sister. And now there are paintings that resemble Madhavi, Indira and Avanti, my granddaughters.
Being a woman in the art scene in a mostly male-dominated filed, how was it for you?
When I was very young, they treated me like a child. Everyone was very kind to me. Right from Hussain to Gaitonde and Tyeb, they treated me like a pet because I was only 17-18 years old and I had my first big exhibition at Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Institute in Bombay when I was 18. Husain brought the exhibition from Delhi. He brought 25 of my paintings, and personally hung them up. They were all so kind to me, I must say.
MF Husain organised your first exhibition? Tell us about it.
Husain had organized my first exhibition in Delhi with 53 paintings in the Lodhi garden. He made the stands out of gunny and bamboo and he hung up the painting himself. Then he took 25 of these paintings and brought them to Bombay and in Bhulabhai Desai Memorial Institute, in those days there were many artists practicing, including Gaitonde, Hussain. All of them had their temporary studios in the verandas of the institute. And there was music and dance going on and there was a dance troupe also practicing there. It was a wonderful atmosphere. And my first exhibition was greeted with great aplomb by the critics and I got a very good review. It was predicted that I would soon join big artists of India. I don’t know whether I did or not, but I have continued to work for the last 60 years, I have painted almost every day of my life. I work a lot. Fortunately, artists don’t retire. So we can go on painting as long as we can.
Earlier there were few big names and they would be the ones who did business. Today there is an influx of new young artists. What do you feel about the art scenario today?
Yes. There is a whole new generation of artists today and I am so glad to see that they are finding a market, they are finding galleries and there is a boom of galleries today. There was a boom a few years ago and then there was a lull for many years but now when there are group shows everything is getting sold. Youngsters are finding place for their work and there are two or three generations after me doing well. All the big dads of art are gone, except Krishen (Krishen Khanna, 98). They all went one after the other, Souza, Hussain, Tyeb, Ram Kumar, Gaitonde, and they lead the price race today. Their work is going for crores in the international and national market, and there is a trickle-down effect where the youngest artists are finding a market.
What would you attribute the boom in art market to?
Among the older buyers, once they had a collection of the wanted artists, there was no more room on their walls. But there is a whole new young executive buyer group which wants to decorate their home, they are wanting lifestyles, big cars, holidays abroad, and this is all part of the same boom. It’s very welcome. India has seen a huge change when it comes to art collectors, art post covid especially has seen a huge boom.
The kind of response you get in India and abroad is it different?
I have been very fortunate and lucky and I have always had a great response right from the '70s onwards. I have had such good fortune that my work has remained in the limelight and people have continued to want to see it, to collect it to publish it. Several books have been published on me and films have been made. So I have nothing to complain about.
You have been close to and around all great artists. Would you like to share some anecdotes?
I have a big one about Souza. I once visited him in his place in New York, and I asked, ‘Souza, why do paint women with such large breasts?’ And he said, ‘If you knew the women whom I know you’d realise that this is no exaggeration’ (laughs). In my younger days, I often attended art camps and they were great fun. I remember a young Paresh (Paresh Maity) doing a sort of strip tease at one of the art camps. They had music on in the evening and at first he threw off his hat, then he threw off his shirt and then everyone said, ‘Stop Stop’. But now Paresh is such a serious artist that people kind of don’t believe these anecdotes from when we were young and wild.
Artificial Intelligence has come up in a huge way. What do you feel about AI and art?
My son is a software specialist and he showed me something on AI that was very amusing. He asked AI to draw an Anjolie Menon painting with a dinosaur and within two minutes, this amazing painting appeared showing one of my women with a dinosaur! And yes, it was sort of my style. So what can be done on AI was demonstrated to me and it was amazing. In the past I was first one in India to delve into digitally enabled art when I did a series called "Gods And Others" in New York. But AI seems to be much further than that. Will the artist stop painting and ask AI to do the paintings? It depends very much on whether AI has copyright or not. Otherwise, you could just do it on AI, print it out and show it. Is that legal? I don’t know.
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