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Page 1 of 2 Tucked away on the first floor above Jehangir Art Gallery in Kalaghoda is
the atypical Chemould Art Gallery. A spirited nook-extension of what was
the first creative crucible of frame making in India -- Chemould Frames,
located in Princess Street in Mumbai. Started by Kekoo Gandhy in 1941, the
pioneer shop marks his affair with art, one that has grown into a timeless
legacy.
“My father started out, making simple, wooden mouldings for paintings of
artists,” says Shireen Gandhy, owner Chemould Art Gallery. “Subsequently
he met Walter Langhammer, an Austrian painter who left his country during
the Nazi occupation of World War II.” It was Langhammer who educated
Kekoo Gandhy in the intricacies of frame making and brought him in
contact with the greats of Indian Progressive Art movement, like Ara, SH
Raza and MF Husain. Admitting to his then modest knowledge of art, Kekoo
says, “ I can’t say that I was interested in art to begin with, but I got
interested in art through my friend Langhammer, after seeing his great
enthusiasm for contemporary art. I felt I had a distinctive role to play
and a vested interest in framing the artworks of artists. I had a vested
interest in seeing a picture transformed by a frame when it would stand a
better chance of finding a buyer. It gave me great satisfaction to be
part of the process that sold paintings.”
Art was hardly a lucrative
market those days, and the painters being low on cash, many a times, left
their paintings at Chemould Frames, trusting Kekoo’s frame making skills
completely. The growing demand for Chemould mouldings made Kekoo Gandhy
convert his father’s godown in Princess Street into the premier Chemould
Frames. And at a time when the city was bereft of venues for showcasing
modernist art, the shop became a vantage hangout for budding artists and
even morphed into a site for tiny, solo exhibitions for painters, like
for M. F. Husain in 1951.
What had started out as a wooden frame making service for prisoners of War
that found their way from Europe to India, grew into a full fledged
business. And twenty years later, the Chemould Art Gallery was born in
1963 as a sustained metaphor of the Gandhy’s tryst with art. “ But frame
making continued to be a consuming pre occupation for my father,” says
Shireen, who adeptly manages the reins at the Gallery. “I can’t say that
it was an obsession because it was hardly a money making domain,” she adds
honestly. Today Kekoo Gandhy has handed over the reins of his passionate
foray to his son Adil and daughter Shireen.
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