Lessons of a Master : Sailoz Mookherjea

Shri Keshav Malik

Sailoz Mookherjea was one of the foremost artists of the Modern Indian Art World. Eminent art critic Keshav Malik takes a very close look at his endearing artistic personality; a personal account of a very committed artist, with subtle lessons interwoven in it.

Many of us would be artists in Delhi in the early days did not really appreciate the spirit of Sailoz Mookherjea; by this I mean that although some of us enjoyed this pioneer painter’s company in the forties and fifties, others took unscrupulous advantage of him. I was, of course, too young when I joined the Ukil School of Art, but even then he, and only he, appeared the one art teacher who exhilarated me by his unorthodox ways. All the remaining teachers there were also fine people, but Sailoz had that extra it, that euphoria, that unconventionality, which brought the hidden thrill of life to the fore. Sailoz was a prince at heart and he was essentially a beautiful human being who carried his person with a childlike innocence. He could even be called the prince of the then art bohemia. But few understood the source from which the spontaneity of his own art flowed, as much as the freedom of his dealings with his pupils.

The chaos of life of one who later lived in but one room above Dhoomimal’s Gallery, suited Sailoz very well; princes like him need no social ambition. Indeed, he himself treated every one as a prince. His cornucopia was generously poured out upon the just and the unjust alike, as long as these were artists or lovers of art. Between penury and the princely magnanimity of his generous attention, an art movement came to exist in Delhi. And what’s more, somehow among all the dross Sailoz picked up, the pure gold of imagination was also present — Ram Kumar being one of his earliest wards.
Sailoz discerned the imaginatively authentic as naturally as an alert cat selects its proper nourishment; as a teacher he had no dull fixed regimen, no idealogy to support; he chose by the direct perception of that living radiance which is the sole mark of genius. One touch of imagination was for Sailoz worth more than all the acquired artifice of talent. He saw right through artistic pretences. “Van Gogh was really a wild man like me,” I remember him saying to me with that warm happy laugh of his in Wenger Restaurant, over beer.