Pilloo Pochkhanawala

Pilloo Pochkhanawala (1 April 1923 – 7 June 1986) was among the first few women sculptors in India.[1] Initially, she worked in advertising before going on to become a sculptor. Through her dynamic works, Pochkhanawala established herself as a pioneer of modern sculpture among her contemporaries.[2] Her pieces were inspired by nature or often took the form of human figures.[3] As a self-taught artist, she employed a variety of media in her artworks including metal, stone and wood among others.[4] Her oeuvre includes intricate drawings, theatrical sets, although she is well known for her large scale public sculptures.[5]

Pilloo Pochkhanawala
Born
Pilloo Adenwalla

1 April 1923
Bombay, British India
Died7 June 1986
NationalityIndian
Known forSculpture
Notable work
Spark
StyleModernism, Minimalism
Spouse(s)Rattan Pochkhanawala
Children1

In addition to being an artist, Pochkhanawala was also a facilitator and mediator of the arts in Bombay. From the 1960s, she organized the Bombay Art Festival for many years.[1] Along with her fellow artists, she also played a major role in transforming the Sir Cowasji Jehangir Hall into the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, which is now one of the country's leading museums housing contemporary art.[3]

Early life and education

Born on 1 April 1923, Pilloo was the daughter of Framroze R. Adenwalla and Jerbai.[6] They were a Parsi family who followed the ancient religion of Zoroastrianism. She was brought up in the household of her paternal grandparents in a traditional joint family consisting of three children and eleven grandchildren. Members of her family were the owners of Cowasjee Dinshaw and Brothers. With the head office of their firm in Bombay, their business also extended to Arabia, Africa and Aden. Pochkhanawala visited these places during her childhood, out of which Zanzibar impressed her the most, especially because of its African Voodoo cult rites.[7]

Instead of following the rigid customs of the family, Pochkhanawala was exposed to diverse perspectives in the company of her peers, both in secondary school and college. The struggle for Indian independence was at its peak during her youth. She became a part of cultural and political changes that were happening with the rise of Quit India Movement whilst World War II. In 1945, she received her bachelor’s degree in commerce from Bombay University[8] and went on to work in an advertising firm.[7] She had married Rattan Pochkhanawala and had one child, Meher.[6][9] Her husband belonged to the family of Sir Sorabji Pochkhanawala, one of the founders of the Central Bank of India.[10]

Career

Working in the advertising industry suppressed Pochkhanawala's urge to draw at her own will. During her time in college, instead of statistics, her books were filled with sketches. It was only after her experience at the advertising agency, she was convinced that visual arts was her real calling.[7]

Foray into sculpture

In 1950–1951, Pochkhanawala made her first visit to Europe. She was on an assignment to create posters and advertisement displays for the national airline, Air India. Meanwhile, she discovered iconic works by artists like Constantin Brâncuși, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Alexander Calder,[10] among many other contemporary sculptors. This rekindled and in fact, sparked her desire to pursue visuals arts and motivated her to turn into a sculptor. She decided to devote herself entirely to sculpture after returning to Bombay.[7] Pochkhanawala was mentored by N. G. Pansare, who taught her the techniques of sculpting and encouraged her to develop her own style by experimenting with materials.[11]

Inspiration from Indian art

Pochkhanawala's visit to temple sites around the country piqued her interest in the art and history of Indian Sculpture. She admired the fluidity and liveliness of these sculptures, which had a profound impact on her creations.

Post independence, Ramkinkar Baij (at Shantiniketan) and Shanko Chowdhury (at Baroda) took over the responsibility to propagated the new approach to making sculptures. She, along with Adi Davierwala in Bombay, worked on sculptures that showcased their beliefs and expressed their experience of living in changing India of the 20th century.[7]

Style

Pochkhanawala was fascinated with the intimate boundaries of space which she could use through the time she existed in. Her arrangement of motifs, the meticulous use of negative space around them and the occasional violent distortions within the abstract mode she worked with, render her sculptures powerful dynamism even today.[12]

Largely experimental in her approach, Pochkhanawala's oeuvre includes a range of materials and approaches from wood, cement, metal, mesh and transparent sheets, eventually turning to “found” and scrap metal, welding and casting them to make her signature forms. Her later works moved away from solid form, and towards fluid, soaring shapes.[13] Her earliest works show a marked influence of Henry Moore, featuring mainly figures of seated women in wood.[11]

Work

Public sculptures

Pochkhanawala is best remembered for her public sculptures, the most famous of which was called Spark and stood over two storeys tall at the old Haji Ali Circle in Mumbai. Originally commissioned by Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST), it was made in her distinct style by welding scrap metal together. It is assumed to have gotten its name from the BEST's connection to electricity and the sculpture's contrast of heavy material and light, bird-like features. The location was important to her as she lived in the area. However, the sculpture had a troubled history, being moved to a smaller circle during her lifetime. It eventually disappeared in a road expansion project in early 1990s. In 2002, a scale model, at one-third the height of the original, was installed through a citizen's initiative, on a traffic island outside the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai. In late 2020, in the midst of the pandemic, the replica was lost in a beautification drive.[10]

Another one of Pochkhanawala's sculptures is Stone Age To Space, installed at the Nehru Science Centre, Worli. It is made of rough sandstone and cast aluminium.[14]

Exhibitions

Pochkhanawala had solo exhibitions from 1955 to 1978 in Bombay, and in Delhi in 1965, 1968 and 1982. She also showed work internationally in exhibitions at Minnesota, USA (1980); Middleheim, Belgium (1974); Belgrade; Bangkok; Tokyo (1967) and in London (1963).[8]

During one of the modern art exhibitions in Bombay, her sculptures were at display in the Prince of Wales Museum. In his book The Heart of India, Duncan Forbes has written about the moment when Pochkhanawala was talking about her work:

I go to a factory to get all these bits of metal. They call it scrap. Some people don't understand these sculptures, but you know, I have a class of deaf and dumb children I teach, and I brought them round without saying anything to them, and do you know, one of the little girls was standing in front of this one, the Kathakali, and she actually began to do a kind of dance. Isn't that amazing?[15]

Forbes took a second look of the sculpture and realized that the crude shapes of the sculpture indeed had some evocative power. He further wrote that, possibly, it was the crude nature of the artwork that allowed the imagination to be free and experience it fully.

Awards and recognition
  • 1954 - Silver Medal, All India Sculptors' Association
  • 1954 - Silver Medal, Mumbai Art Society
  • 1955 - Prize, Maharashtra State Art Exhibition
  • 1959 - 1st Prize, Mumbai State Art Exhibition
  • 1961 - Prize, Maharashtra State Art Exhibition
  • 1979 - Award by Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi [8]

Death and legacy

Pochkhanawala died on 7 June 1986 due to cancer.[9] In the recent years, she seen a rise in popularity, with her works appearing in art shows in Mumbai, namely No Parsi is an Island[16] and The 10 Year Hustle.[17] However she remains largely forgotten with her public sculptures lost or unknown. She was one of the earliest proponents of a modernist wave in Indian sculpture, developing a style that moved away from merely making likenesses of popular figures.[10]

References
  1. "Pilloo Pochkhanawala - JNAF". Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  2. "PILLOO POCHKHANAWALA | UNTITLED | Modern and Contemporary South Asian Art | Sotheby's".{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  3. "14 Parsi artists dialogue in Delhi – in pictures – ArtRadarJournal.com". Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  4. Yamini Mehta (June 2, 2017). "Eternal frames". India Today. Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  5. "PILLOO POCHKHANAWALA (1923-1986)". www.christies.com. Retrieved 2022-03-30.
  6. Indian Who's Who 1980-81. New Delhi: INFA Publications. p. 85.
  7. Pochkhanawala, Pilloo R.; Clerk, S. I. (1979). "On My Work as a Sculptor". Leonardo. 12 (3): 192–196. doi:10.2307/1574206. ISSN 0024-094X. JSTOR 1574206. S2CID 147265357.
  8. "Pilloo Pochkanawala". Saffronart. Retrieved 2022-03-30.
  9. शिल्पकार चरित्रकोश खंड ६ - दृश्यकला (in Marathi). मुंबई: साप्ताहिक विवेक, हिंदुस्थान प्रकाशन संस्था. 2013. pp. 339–340.
  10. "Mystery of the missing 'Spark' as Thackeray gets statue in Mumbai". The Indian Express. 2021-01-23. Retrieved 2022-03-30.
  11. "Pilloo Pochkhanawala: Sculpting a Legacy (Catalogue Note)". Sotheby's.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. "PILLOO POCHKHANAWALA (1923-1986)". www.christies.com. Retrieved 2021-03-22.
  13. "criticalcollective.in". criticalcollective.in. Retrieved 2022-03-30.
  14. "When your road gets the art attack". Hindustan Times. 2011-01-21. Retrieved 2022-03-30.
  15. Forbes, Duncan (1969). The heart of India ([1st American ed.] ed.). South Brunswick [N.J.]: A.S. Barnes. pp. 73–75. ISBN 0-498-07360-2. OCLC 6230.
  16. Jhaveri, Shanay (2014-03-20). "A Larger World". Frieze. No. 162. ISSN 0962-0672. Retrieved 2022-03-30.
  17. "The 10 Year Hustle: Celebrating a decade of our gallery space | Chatterjee & Lal". Retrieved 2022-03-30.
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