Black and White Magic

A lot has changed since. Now Pablo has a lot more negatives to lay his hands on — negatives which,when developed,look like poetry in chiaroscuro,which recall the sensuousness of ordinary moments,which display the art,the unintentional choreography,of everyday life. “I only went through 4,000 negatives for the earlier show,now I have 17,000,” he says,as he readies to put up a new exhibition of Bartholomew’s work and release a book that will feature 58 images. Titled A Critic’s Eye,this isn’t just a son’s ode to his father. It is also a testament to a bygone era,to a moonlit night in Old Delhi,c. 1956,which Bartholomew turns into something surreal,in which light reflected in ditchwater becomes truly numinous. He takes you to mist-wrapped Mussoorie,c. 1964,in which a row of sleeping rickshawpullers would have you wonder if they had been painstakingly choreographed. There is his summer studio in Almora,

c. 1957,which despite being black and white somehow recalls Van Gogh’s bedroom in Arles in all its yellow-and-blue glory. He takes you to a classroom tent in Gujarat and to Narinder Place on Delhi’s Parliament Street. “Now,the building has been replaced by the DLF Centre,” says Pablo,his gaze shifting from the book to the frames on the walls.

Suspended on white walls are pictures of a young Pablo often sharing frame with brother Robin. There is Bartholomew’s wife Rati sleeping on the floor,sitting on the edge of a bed,wrapping a sari — an intense intimacy pervading them despite the casualness of it all. “We were not conscious of the camera. It was part of our lives,” recalls Pablo.

Perhaps,it was the same unobtrusive approach that allowed Bartholomew to catch artists in their least self-conscious moments. Bhupen Khakhar seems to be in the middle of a gig with a mike in his hand in a picture taken in Delhi in 1970. In the absence of any notes by Bartholomew,Pablo banked on memory and his father’s friends to provide approximate dates.

Some of the images were displayed last year at Sepia International,New York,and in Christie’s South Asian and Modern Contemporary Art Catalogue,but most are being exhibited for the first time. And as the exhibition moves from Photoink,Delhi,to Chatterjee & Lal,Mumbai,later this year,Pablo is already looking at giving his dad’s writing a renewed place through a publication. For now,though,the focus is on the exhibition that opens today.

The exhibition at Photoink is on till February 28