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The Artist Never Known
Pinakin Patel on the life and legacy of multi-disciplinary artist, Dashrath Patel
Speakers
The Padma Shri and Padman Bhushan awardee, polymath Dashrath Patel, was a man who wore many hats: design pedagogue, skilled painter, exhibition designer, photographer, ceramics artist, sculptor, and institution builder. An artist from L’Ecole Beaux-Arts, who shared the Bhulabhai Desai Studios with contemporary artists Husain, Raza, Gaitonde and Padamsee, Dashrath Patel surprisingly receives no mention in books on Modern & Contemporary Indian Art.
As the Founder-Secretary of Education at the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, Patel laid the foundation for professional design practice and pedagogy in India, nurturing the institution for two decades from the sixties to the eighties. In his time at NID, he interacted and worked with several luminaries like Charles and Ray Eames, Frei Otto, Corbusier and Louis Kahn. Yet he is rarely mentioned or shown in any design journals or exhibitions.
Pinakin Patel, founder of the Dashrath Patel Museum in Alibaug, near Mumbai, talks about the life and works of the prolific artist, designer and educator, Dashrath Patel, exploring his significance and legacy.
High Tea: 6pm
*Please be seated by 6:25pm
About Dashrath Patel:
An artist from L’Ecole Beaux Arts, who shared the Bhulabhai Desai Studios with contemporaries Husain, Raza, Gaitonde and Padamsee, Dashrath Patel is not even mentioned in a single book on Modern/Contemporary Indian Art.
As the Founder Secretary of Education of NID Ahmedabad, he interacted with luminaries like Charles and Ray Eames, Frei Otto, Corbusier and Louis Kahn. Yet, strangely, he is rarely mentioned or shown in any design journal or exhibition.
Photographer Henri Cartier Bresson invited Dashrath to apprentice with him for several years. Rather than searching for the prefect shot, Dashrath built up a visual narrative of his country that is high on academic content but unfortunately low in pixel resolution for any photo gallery to show his works.
He presented the world’s first multiple screen projection, and designed all the major exhibitions of independent India on Gandhi Nehru and so on. The dramatic openings of the Festivals of India in France and USSR involved co-ordinating thousands of craftsmen and performers, for a global television audience. Besides the pictures he took of those events himself, there are few to be found anywhere else.
After NID, in the eighties, Dashrath took up rural development in the Gandhi Ashram in Sewapuri near Benares. For eight years he lived there and trained the villagers to produce ‘well designed’ consumer products. However, globalization brought in ‘styled’ products from outside, and by the early nineties, sustainable design was forgotten.
In emphasizing the perpetual Indian paradox, I may begin to sound negative, but Dashrath himself was optimistic until his last day! Robust. Energetic. Strategistic. Visionary. He could use his own hands to make everything he conceptualized. Totally centered and grounded in his simple living and high thinking, gritty andtenacious.
Around 2000 I could fulfill his dream of creating a platform where his works would inspire creative people from all walks of life, to meet each other, and through that exchange, empower each other’s growth. The Dashrath Patel Museum in Alibag is where his legacy lives today.
About MAP:
The Museum of Art & Photography’s (MAP) mission is to build, manage and sustain a new museum to exhibit, interpret and preserve a growing collection of art and cultural artefacts, motivated by a belief that museums should play a positive role in society. It seeks to bridge art and community and serve as a catalyst for greater public exposure to the important cultural history of the visual arts in the country.
Speakers
Pinakin Patel
Pinakin Patel graduated in Chemistry in 1975 only to discover that his heart was in the creative disciplines. By 1979, he steered his life’s course into a totally different direction. He launched ‘Etcetera’ – India’s first lifestyle store where he began to design his own line of furniture complemented by an entire symphony of art textiles and accessories. Contemporary Indian art and traditional crafts were mixed in his uncanny style.
The store’s innovative display brought offers for interior designing. Interiors led to architecture, and free spirited Pinakin took up stints in journalism, photography, exhibition design, production design, and art curation.
A bench designed by him, auctioned for the highest amount at the Swiss Consulate’s fund raiser conducted by Christie’s. The National Gallery of Modern Art invited him to create a show on ‘Street Art’. Pinakin started working voluntarily with the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sanghralaya on formulating and designing the Museum Gallery and the Karl Khandalawala Section. His dear friends Kekoo and Khorshed Gandhi spurred him to associate with the newly founded Paramparik Karigar headed by Roshan Kalapesi. Roshan spurred him on to help with Theatre Design and it continued into Alyque, Pearl and Rael Padamsee’s productions. During this camaraderie, Pinakin realized what a great contribution the Parsi Community had made towards the Art and Culture of Mumbai. In his own way, he tried to repay this in a small way by contributing his time effort and now collected experience to the J J School Fund Raiser with Dadiba and Khorshed Pundole and the renovation of the J J School of Arts Gallery. Pinakin catalyzed ‘The Portrait of a Community’ and the Paramparik Karigar Craft Exhibition both at the NGMA. The barriers and divides between art, craft, architecture, design, commerce, philanthropy, serious work and fun stuff all dissolved into his goodwill for the creative community.
At the height of his popularity, in 2000, Pinakin shifted his studio from the hustle bustle of Mumbai to the quiet of Alibag. Here, amidst the spiritual ambience of nature his creative energies supported by Hindustani Music and Indian Philosophy, received great visibility and acclaim.
At this critical juncture, the Guru appeared. From nowhere. India’s Renaissance Man Dashrath Patel shifted his home and studio to Pinakin’s little haven in Alibag. In the decade to come this was to result in the creation of the Dashrath Patel Museum in Alibag.
In early 2005, Pinakin Patel was re-launched, by gen next as a brand called PINAKIN. By now he had also earned the unique distinction of being the first crusader of the ‘India Modern’ aesthetic. He was invited to speak on Contemporary Indian Design at the World Interior Design Conference in NCPA Mumbai along with stalwarts such as Tadao Ando.
Pinakin considers himself lucky to have interacted with many a creative genius from Art Historian Dr. Saryu Doshi, Dancer Chandralekha, Designer Patricia Urquiola, Corporate Leader Rahul Bajaj, Indian Cinema’s Shabana and Javed Akhtar, Tate Director Sir Nick Serrota, Grand Palais Director Chris Dercon and so on. This culminated when he worked on the residence of Mr. Radheshyam Agarwal, Chairman Emami Group, in Kolkata. Upon its completion, Pinakin retired in 2014 and took up the study and retail experience of Fashion Design only to be interrupted by a magical break again from his Patron Agarwalji who gave Pinakin a 65000 sq ft building to design and then express himself freely in providing a Public Arts Building for the city of Kolkata and beyond. The Kolkata Centre of Art is a much celebrated endeavor already and in less than a year it has received the acclaim of the global creative community.
Pinakin lives in Alibag since the last twenty years and plans to hang on there until it becomes what he had predicted…”The Hamptons of Mumbai”.
