Damage control

In a makeshift studio at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower in Mumbai,art restorer Priya Khanna is painstakingly working on an MF Husain oil from the 1960s.

In a makeshift studio at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower in Mumbai,art restorer Priya Khanna is painstakingly working on an MF Husain oil from the 1960s. Some of the paint had come off when the hotel was engulfed in flames during the 26/11 terror attack and gallons of water were used to douse the fire.

The water loosened the base below the paint. The work had to be cleaned and consolidated before we started refilling it with the original colour paint, says the Delhi-based Khanna,41,about the Husain canvas that she has been working on for over six weeks now. In the last year,over 100 works from the hotel collection that suffered minor and major damage during the terror attacks have been restored,but there are still several more to go. The art in the heritage wing was worst affected, says Mortimer Chatterjee,partner at Mumbai gallery Chatterjee and Lal,who has been curating art at the Taj since 2002. The Taj has a formidable collection of Modern and Contemporary art that includes rare Bastar tribal art and works by renowned Indian Masters mostly from the 1960s and 70s.

Earlier this year,Chatterjee commissioned some new artwork for the hotel. So when it opened this month,The Harbour Bar had on display a Rajesh Pullarwar acrylic on wood,while Japanese restaurant Wasabi had a Sadanand Shirke work.

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Some of the damaged artwork was beyond repair,but Khanna who set up her studio in 1998 and has in the past restored works by Raja Ravi Varma,Jamini Roy and FN Souza is hopeful that most will be restored to their original condition. Khanna travels to Mumbai every fortnight and works with a team of four artists with expertise in restoration. The level of damage of each artwork varies. In some cases the smoke coated the surface of the painting with soot. The water made the canvas damp which resulted in fungus, says Khanna.

The archive of photographs of the artwork maintained by the hotel is acting as reference,and Khanna and her team are also cataloguing the restoration process. Photographs of each work,taken before,during and after complete restoration,will be handed to the hotel, says Khanna. Though the larger canvases are worked upon in Mumbai,she usually lugs the paperwork and etchings to Delhi. Itll speed up the process, says the postgraduate in conservation of art from National Museum,Delhi. Tight-lipped about the cost incurred,Chatterjee says there is no deadline. Curating artwork and restoration is a continuous process, he says.

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