rajesh Mehra
If Delhi claims to be one of the important centers of contemporary Indian art, it owes it to the Delhi Silpi Chakra group members. Dr. Seema Bawa talks about one such eminent member of the Silpi Chakra group, Rajesh Mehra.
One of the more influential painters of the 60’s and 70’s was the very affable and accessible artist-teacher Rajesh Mehra who was not only a member of the Silpi Chakra but also the ideologically driven progressive group 1890. According to J. Swaminathan, the chief ideologue and member of the group, “The strivings of the new painters of the sixties in India became relevant. There is a perceptible shift in the modern Indian movement and we are perhaps on the threshold of a great and meaningful upsurge. Among the artists of the sixties working in significant directions, away from the false modernism of previous decades, are Ambadas, Jeram Patel, Himmat Shah, Rajesh Mehra, Bhupen Khakhar, Ghulam Mohd. Sheikh, Jyoti Bhatt, Raghav Kaneria (sculptor), Vivan Sundaram, Gautam Vaghela, Piraji Sagara, K.C.S. Panicker.” Amongst these he commented that “Rajesh Mehra had been painting figures and landscapes. But his are the figures and landscapes of the mind embracing the universe as space. His later water colours are most fruitful to my mind in the direction of the “Numinous.” [i] Rajesh Mehra’s felicity with painting the semi figurative works, imbuing these with symbolic character had a lasting influence on his contemporaries and his students, especially Manjit Bawa and Jagdish De whose eloquent interactions with Mehra at a personal and pedagogic level can be seen in their earlier works.