在孟买再一个Reba霍瑞回顾rtist's life through her art

"From Amrita Sher-Gil to Anjolie Ela Menon, Indian women artists have always held a special place in the art world. Their perseverance and dedication to their skill have resulted in some of the most famous names to crop up throughout Indian art history. Nevertheless, there are definitely a few names that time has obscured, like Reba Hore's," says Puneet Shah, founder of Akara Art, as his Mumbai-based gallery lends finishing touches to its upcoming exhibition celebrating Reba Hore's legacy.

Largely overlooked in her lifetime, the artist who died in 2008 at the age of 82, is the refreshing subject of Akara Art's 'I Grow More and More' opening 12 November. Even though she has largely lived under the shadows of her more renowned artist-husband Somnath Hore, Shah says that is changing now with some posthumous glory spotlighting her contribution in the recent decade.

He reminds us that 'I Grow More and More' follows in the heels of another successful show of the artist in Kolkata. Hosted by the Experimenter gallery, it concluded just last month. Shah and Reba's daughter Chandana, herself an artist, have been planning this project even before the Covid-19 pandemic.

"Chandana had been wanting to show her mother's works in Mumbai for quite some time. Having been good friends with her for over a decade, we both discussed this to be the right time as another major Reba Hore exhibition was held recently in Kolkata. Thus, the momentum and interest in her work continues to grow," says Shah.

Reba Hore's Heroism

A stirring emotional and heroic response to her own mundane domestic life, Reba Hore's art reveals fragments of herself and the intimate world of the people she knew. Reba developed an innately unique idiom of expression. A palpable sense of passion and emotion for her art shines through in the show, which brings together many of her unseen paintings from the 1950s right up till the '90s—terracotta sculptures, pastel drawings and collages.

Much of Reba's art is abstract in nature. "Spontaneous" (as she herself once described her style) and at times, brooding, her work is defined by strong impasto. Her daughter Chandana concedes, that she was "an introverted painter. Working on big canvases, she used themes that were expressionist and emotional. Through her works she essayed the happy surroundings and the mundanely existential."

Shah insists that painting was "like breathing to her—a reason for her existence." Works on display in the current show such asThe Kitchen, CompositionandConversationsbear testimony to her restless and relentless innovations. What makes these works stand out is the bold brushstrokes and free-style use of colour, suggesting a delicate dance between warm and cool undertones.

Shah explains: "Most of Reba’s works are intuitive. There is an idea, a theme that comes from what she thinks, what she sees and things that move her. As soon as we enter into the space with Reba’s art, we realize that they are communicating with us. The clemency of her lines and the way in which she portrays them tells us that she respects the relevance of simplicity. Rather than make her art complex and abstract, Reba believes that her art should showcase the rawness of human nature. She does exactly this with her figurative rendition inThe Kitchen."

Santiniketan Phase

Born in 1926—to a father who was a chief justice at the Supreme Court—Reba attended the prestigious Government College of Art and Craft in Calcutta, where she met her future husband Somnath Hore. In 1967, the couple moved to Santiniketan, which would become an important milestone in her career. The artist also lived in Delhi and Kolkata, but in many ways, it was in Santiniketan that she found herself being fully engaged with her talents.

Housed in Santiniketan, the Kala Bhavana was the bastion of the creative arts those days, with pivotal figures like Nandalal Bose, Ramkinkar Baij and Benode Bihari Mukherjee thoroughly embodying and leading the exciting art scene. This period in her life profoundly impacted and changed her art. "Kala Bhavana was open to all working artists. She interacted closely with the students, which opened up her canvases and allowed her works to broaden. She wielded a surrealistic essence of separation and grief in her oil paintings," says Chandana, adding that she was also politically active from a young age.

Around the mid-1970s and early 1980s, her mother developed an allergy while using oil which precipitated a shift towards the medium of 'encaustic' paintings. This involved long hours of mixing colour pigments with wax. Regardless, Reba found the process oddly ameliorative and highly enjoyable. 'I Grow More and More' has displayed two of the so-called 'encaustic' works from the 1970s. It is interesting to note that from the mid-70s onwards, her work became more abstract and colourful.

A Moving River

The last phase of her life, Chandana says, was difficult for her. She lost her husband in Santiniketan in 2006. Overcome with grief, she tried to channel this loss into her work. Her weakening eyesight and growing solitude also seemed to have left a mark on her ever-changing art, as she started focussing more on poetic oils and black and white drawings.

Comparisons with her husband are unfair, Shah says. Summing up her legacy, he says that they are very different artists. "These were also two extremely different individuals as well," he explains, adding that where "Somnath was filled with righteous angst and fire, Reba was the calm but always a moving river that conducted the fiery nature of her husband."

Chandana points out that one of Reba's primary roles was to manage her husband and keep him and the house in order. "Her hands were full running a household with a small school-going child, dealing with the tantrums of a busy and difficult husband and balancing that with eight hours of painting and interactions with friends. She continued to create and weave into her art all of these daily oddities.

“She was a demure wife, a loving mother and an understated artist whose goals in life started first with her family and then culminated with her art. Aside from this, she continued to religiously follow her practice and take every opportunity to paint and educate herself about the current trends. As the title of this show suggests, her creativity and artistic intelligence simply grew more and more. It is our utmost effort to bring to light her contribution and link the trajectory with her husband's success, commercially and curatorially,” Shah concludes.

‘I Grow More and More’ is at Akara Art gallery, Mumbai, from 12 November - 24 December