Coloured Pages

The hardbound variety has a recent addition—art critic Deepanjana Pal’s book The Painter on Raja Ravi Varma published by Random House. “I spent most of my time trying to figure out the tone of the book. I didn’t want it to be boring,I didn’t want it to be frivolous either,” says Pal,32,who works for a popular culture magazine.

She has dwelt less on the academic gravitas of whether Varma does kitsch or high art and focused instead on capturing the life of the artist,his eccentricities and his time,while darkening the faint lines of some of Varma’s past. “Although I prefer contemporary art over the classical,Varma bears interesting resonances with our times of global influences,” says Pal,whose words present the artist to the reader as a living,breathing person.

At the other end of the spectrum is a frothy paperback thriller Faking It by expat writer Amrita Chowdhury,which was launched at Gallery Mirchandani & Steinrueke in Mumbai two months back. A la Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code,the racy tale tracks down a fake Amrita Sher-Gil painting,with exciting traps laid out for the leading character,a diamond-dripping lady of leisure.

Another book,published in 2008,is Ali’s World,a poignant account of an eponymous special child. Written by his parents Badal and Swapna Mukhopadhya — and a with foreward by Aamir Khan,the star of Tare Zameen Par — the book shows how Ali discovers art and how his life is cut short by an accident at 20,just as his talent was beginning to blossom. Publisher Roli Books reports a good sales.

If Ali’s World appeals due to its heartfelt portrait of a budding artist,Faking It was strictly pulp. “I am a fan of Sher-Gil,but I’m not an art expert,” says Chowdhury,an MBA from Carnegie Mellon,USA,and a first-time writer. “I interviewed people from the art circles. My real talent lies in writing a thriller.” For serious readers,there’s always Yashodhara Dalmia’s,Amrita Sher-Gil,a Life published by Penguin in 2006.

The book shelves in art galleries may be packed with tomes on MF Husain,but when an e-book was launched on the artist recently,the target was clearly the reader who doesn’t haunt galleries. The e-book attempts to reconfigure art through an animated,audio-visual format. Meanwhile,Roli Books has been serving bite-size portions of art for the past five years. “We have done the pocket art series on artists ranging from Arpana Caur to Vivan Sundaram,” says Priya Kapoor,director,Roli.

But nothing beats a insider’s account. Which is why painter-writer Krishen Khanna’s The Time of My Life: Memories,Anecdotes & Tall Talk,which captures his life as a boy living in Lahore ,has sold out. The Gurgaon-based artist is now planning a tell-all book on the Bombay Progressives. “I write in a conversational tone. This book will be different from scholastic accounts of MF Husain,S H Raza and FN Souza. I’ll include our letters and reveal some of the well-guarded secrets,” chuckles the octogenarian. We can’t wait to grab a copy.