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拍品專文
Perhaps best known for her bronze sculptures, Meera Mukherjee also made forays into other media over the course of her career, including painting, drawing, book illustration, textile art and carpet weaving. The present lot is part of a body of kantha embroidery that Mukherjee produced in the 1980s and 90s, and represents a continuation of her longstanding interest in craftsmanship, materiality, and tradition.
Kantha is the centuries-old art of reusing cloth and threads from worn garments to create new embroidered textiles, largely practiced by rural women in Bengal. To create a kantha, one typically starts with plain, white cotton fabric, often taken from a dhoti, before decorating with colored threads pulled from other clothes, often the borders of old saris. The iconography of kantha embroidery varies widely, and can encompass nature, religious icons, abstract motifs, current events and even cartoon characters. Kanthas also vary between simple and elaborate, a reflection of the needs of the maker and the purpose of the textile: they have been variously used as blankets, book covers and even diapers. Some are passed down from generation to generation as heirlooms. Historic kanthas serve as valuable glimpses into everyday life in the past, showcasing women’s experiences across class, caste, and religious backgrounds. While the practice of kantha declined in the early twentieth century, it was revived in the 1970s and 80s when the Indian and Bangladeshi governments began to invest in indigenous crafts. Simultaneously, artists like Mukherjee, K.G. Subramanyan and Jyoti Bhatt also aided its revival as they sought to document and derive inspiration from tribal, rural and folk art, and bring these practices into the realm of contemporary art.
However, Mukherjee did not just borrow from these traditions and the people who practiced them. For her, creating kanthas was a collaborative and mutually beneficial process. First, she would visit villages around Kolkata and encourage and teach local children to draw. She would then use the children’s drawings as the basis for her textile designs. Finally, she would commission village women to create the kanthas using her designs, paying them for their labor and sharing the profits after she sold the finished products. "Working with the children and women at Elachi and Nolgorhat in South 24 Parganas, then the outskirts of the city [Kolkata], the artist initiated a unique conversation that led to an unparalleled creative journey [...] In this project, the artist leads the way of the collective creative force, from child-art to more pronounced art forms involving traditional pictorial registers and complex technicalities. It was not only a major part of her artistic pursuit, but also amply reflected on the way she realised the social significance of art and its role in community life" (A. Dutta, 'Stitched Paintings', Meera Mukherjee, Kolkata, 2023, not paginated).
The vivid colors and bold, graphic quality of this embroidered textile reflects Mukherjee’s characteristic fusion of historical practices with the visual language of modern art. Despite her engagement with modernism, Mukherjee rejected any hierarchy between artist and artisan, instead positing that artists should aspire to be like artisans, and emulate their labor, craftsmanship and devotion. Mukherjee’s kantha pieces are a reflection of this conviction, and her deep respect for traditional forms of artistic labor.
Kantha is the centuries-old art of reusing cloth and threads from worn garments to create new embroidered textiles, largely practiced by rural women in Bengal. To create a kantha, one typically starts with plain, white cotton fabric, often taken from a dhoti, before decorating with colored threads pulled from other clothes, often the borders of old saris. The iconography of kantha embroidery varies widely, and can encompass nature, religious icons, abstract motifs, current events and even cartoon characters. Kanthas also vary between simple and elaborate, a reflection of the needs of the maker and the purpose of the textile: they have been variously used as blankets, book covers and even diapers. Some are passed down from generation to generation as heirlooms. Historic kanthas serve as valuable glimpses into everyday life in the past, showcasing women’s experiences across class, caste, and religious backgrounds. While the practice of kantha declined in the early twentieth century, it was revived in the 1970s and 80s when the Indian and Bangladeshi governments began to invest in indigenous crafts. Simultaneously, artists like Mukherjee, K.G. Subramanyan and Jyoti Bhatt also aided its revival as they sought to document and derive inspiration from tribal, rural and folk art, and bring these practices into the realm of contemporary art.
However, Mukherjee did not just borrow from these traditions and the people who practiced them. For her, creating kanthas was a collaborative and mutually beneficial process. First, she would visit villages around Kolkata and encourage and teach local children to draw. She would then use the children’s drawings as the basis for her textile designs. Finally, she would commission village women to create the kanthas using her designs, paying them for their labor and sharing the profits after she sold the finished products. "Working with the children and women at Elachi and Nolgorhat in South 24 Parganas, then the outskirts of the city [Kolkata], the artist initiated a unique conversation that led to an unparalleled creative journey [...] In this project, the artist leads the way of the collective creative force, from child-art to more pronounced art forms involving traditional pictorial registers and complex technicalities. It was not only a major part of her artistic pursuit, but also amply reflected on the way she realised the social significance of art and its role in community life" (A. Dutta, 'Stitched Paintings', Meera Mukherjee, Kolkata, 2023, not paginated).
The vivid colors and bold, graphic quality of this embroidered textile reflects Mukherjee’s characteristic fusion of historical practices with the visual language of modern art. Despite her engagement with modernism, Mukherjee rejected any hierarchy between artist and artisan, instead positing that artists should aspire to be like artisans, and emulate their labor, craftsmanship and devotion. Mukherjee’s kantha pieces are a reflection of this conviction, and her deep respect for traditional forms of artistic labor.