Akara Art

BHUPEN KHAKHAR

Akara Modern

1934 -2003

Born in Mumbai, Bhupen Khakhar was a trailblazer in the era of modern Indian art. He may have started as a hobby artist, but Khakhar knew in his heart that this was what he wanted to do in perpetuum. Leaving behind a career in accounting, Khakhar went on to study Art Criticism at the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda. It was here that he began painting and became involved with the seminal Narrative Figurative movement.

Even though his career in art started relatively late in his life, he went on to become an internationally acclaimed artist. His figurative, often homoerotic work, offered insightful observations of class, sexuality, and identity. Being queer, Khakhar explored the concepts of gender, inclusivity, and coming out in his works. Most of what he made was not restricted to working with canvas but also included watercolours, drawings, etchings, collages, and ceramics. Using his art as paving blocks to document the role of statuses within society and the ideas that marred an honest living, Bhupen Khakhar aimed to encapsulate his own story through the eyes of the other.

He held his first solo exhibition in Mumbai in 1965 and has had several solo shows thereafter, in Mumbai, New Delhi, Baroda, London, Ahmedabad, Amsterdam, Den Haag, Paris and Tokyo. His paintings can be found in various private collections and several public collections including that of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. His works have been exhibited across India and the world, including Akara Art, Mumbai; Grosvenor Gallery, London; the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the Jehangir Art Gallery, Mumbai among others. Khakhar’s works have had far-reaching effects, and this was proven in 2016 when the Tate Modern hosted Bhupen Khakhar’s first international retrospective, “You can’t please all.” This retrospective brought together five decades of his works from collections across the world. He was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India in 1984.