Died: Mehlli Minocher Gobhai, 87, one of the foremost abstractionist artists in India, on September 13, 2018 in Bombay following peripheral neuro- pathy and respiratory distress.
"Gobhai was a niche artist, with a niche following of collectors, an artist who was admired by other artists. But those he touched, he touched deeply,” summed up Shireen Jungalwala of Chemould Prescott Road (erstwhile Gallery Chemould) where Gobhai had held his last solo exhibition in 2011 and two years later participated in a group show titled "Aesthetic Bind: Subject of Death.” In the preceding three decades he had exhibited at Chemould as also Gallery 7, Bombay Art Gallery, Guild Art Gallery, Sakshi Gallery, among others. "While Mehlli, the person, was full of geniality, joie de vivre, personable, Mehlli, the artist, or rather his artwork was quiet, brooding, full of solitude… A painting by Gobhai hit you in the heart which caused a surge of pain or love or longing,” Jungalwala conveyed to Parsiana.
"Of course, I am not saying that the understanding of his work was universal,” Jungalwala clarified before sharing an anecdote that Gobhai loved to recount of a man who walked into Gallery Chemould and on seeing the large paper works enquired, "Works are covered? When will they be opened?” To Jungalwala, that epitomized "the spirit of the man… confident and completely accepting of what came his way.”
"I knew him since the 1980s, first as a graphic designer when he would make his annual visits to India and regularly visit our Pundole Art Gallery and art shop where we sold old objects,” recalls Dadiba Pundole. Considering him "a friend on many fronts,” Pundole stated that "a mutual love for the outdoors and animals” bound them. "Hinged by light” was one group show, curated by Ranjit Hoskote at Pundoles, when he professionally dealt with Gobhai, the artist. "He had a great sense of design and balance, was austere in his use of colors and opted to burnish his paintings (not very familiar in India then, the process gave a gentle/lustrous glow to the artwork),” stated Pundole. Constantly besieged by the need to validate his work at every step, Pundole felt Gobhai was "too much of a perfectionist and thereby lost a lot of time.”
Describing his works on paper as "superb,” art curator Pheroza Godrej regretted that "as an artist he remained in one phase instead of taking the next step which would have carried him ahead. He should have kept a grip on his professional life as an artist. He had huge potential.” Their parents being family friends, she knew "his very gracious mother Perin” indulged the prodigal son who had shifted base to the US but would come home annually. The Bohemian son settled in India only after his mother’s passing away.
On his sojourns to India he would spend considerable time at his retreat in the Himalayas. Godrej recalled a family trip with her parents and children to Palampur in the early 1990s, intending to pay him a visit in the Kangra valley. Eventually she had to proceed solo to his abode when she learnt that Andretta, the artists village where potter Gurcharan Singh and like-minded creative individuals derived inspiration, could only be accessed after trekking over fields and crossing a stream. Gobhai’s lodgings, which though appealing in an artistic, romantic way with a grass covered roof sloping under a mountain, she considered an "impractical house,” quite unlike the luxuries surrounding him in Bombay. Whilst there, he is known to have worked on a series of children’s books that publishers Speaking Tiger will bring out soon translated in Punjabi, Hindi, Marathi, Tamil and Urdu.
Referring to the much maligned crows, Gobhai had commented (Mint, June 6, 2015), "Those blacks and greys are splendid; I think peacocks are over-rated, just too much color. Crows have character. They always seem to be looking you in the eye, as if assessing you.” His works being dominated by shades of brown, rust, gray, black and olive, Gobhai viewed color as superfluous. His rationale was explained on the website of Saffronart: "I am afraid of color only because it could run away with you and could become a seductive color. I have this attitude now that you should only pick up a certain color when you feel that the painting would not survive without that color.”
Saffronart further explained his style of painting on handmade, rough, textured paper which he would cover with layers of various media including acrylics, pastels, zinc powder and graphite, using paintbrush, fingers and cloth to rub in the dry pigments and powders. " Alternating between polishing and scouring, the artist marked the surface by drawing lines over it and sometimes making actual notches in and texturing the surface with a buffer.”
As noted a tribute on the website of Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation, "Gobhai was one of the foremost abstractionist artists in India… Surface and structure are important in his works. The surface is always a base for the creation of a tactile sensuousness. His paintings feel and look like either an aged scrap of leather, an old parchment, a metal sheet or the rind of a fruit. Structure on the other hand is cut down or refined to the point of virtual non-existence. Straight and stark lines cut across the painting, depicting the most essential… They define and organize his paintings for him.”
His close circle of friends of all ages included artists Jehangir Sabavala and Meera Devidayal, architect Charles Correa who designed his Gholvad home, adman Sylvester DaCunha… Art critic Ranjit Hoskote who with his wife Nancy Adajania will be curating a retrospective of Gobhai’s work at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in March 2019 was quoted in The Hindu of September 13 as stating that Gobhai was "easily our finest abstractionist. He really crafted his own amazing abstractionism idiom that was literally special. Had he played his card better in terms internationally, he would have been in a different league. He’s in the same league of (Mark) Rothko and (Barnett) Newman.” To long-time journalist friend Bachi Karkaria, "Gobhai was the ultimate in urbane cool, strolling insouciantly between SoHo galleries and SoBo mansions… He was both Parsi and artist which means aesthete and eccentric…”
Writer Jerry Pinto who considered Gobhai "one of my closest friends,” had penned his tribute on Scroll.in, "He was the man who taught me to eat cheese that smelled different and lamented my lack of a drinking habit. He taught me to look at modern art, he taught me how to respect the sacred geometry of a Chola bronze. He taught me the correct way to tie my shoelaces…
"He took his work seriously. So seriously in fact that he often waited for a painting to begin happening for months. And then there would be the first approach, the black thread taken from his mother’s sewing box. This would be pinned carefully to the canvas and then he would sit back and light a Gauloise (a French cigarette) and consider what had happened to space and time and him and us by this simple intervention. When it seemed as if this might be able to bear the burden of what he wanted to magic into being, he would begin the work of painting. But it wasn’t work; it was a campaign.”
Gobhai, who had studied at St Xavier’s School and St Xavier’s College, had learnt drawing under master draughtsman Shiavax Chavda. After pursuing graphic design at London’s Royal College of Art, he returned to Bombay to work in the creative department of J. Walter Thompson where he is known to have drawn some magnificent roughs for the Air India campaigns being managed by the legendary Bobby Kooka. Later he proceeded to study at The Art Students League of New York and the Pratt Graphic Centre in New York, returning to Bombay two decades later.
His family though was keen that Go-bhai practice law. Good looking and tall like his maternal grandfather Dinshaw Romer (of the distinguished legal firm Romer Dadachanji Sethna and Company), it was expected that he would pursue the same profession. But after studying law for a short time, he chose to pursue art instead, revealed Roshan Dastur who described her much elder cousin as "a very loving and lovable person. He enjoyed company and good food, was jovial and perceptive, even as a youth.” She recalled an instance from her early days when her own piano had gone for repairs and she needed to practice the instrument at the Gobhai residence. He would thoughtfully keep a cool glass of Vimto ready for her each time, knowing she had walked in the heat to reach their home. Extremely fond of pets, he always had a dog at home, would willingly nurse and take care of any injured creature, and as a mischievous boy delighted in springing a squirrel on unsuspecting elders in the family. His kindness extended to his domestic help and their children who were well provided and educated thanks to his largesse, stated Dastur. Whilst proud to be a Parsi, he was not a ritualistic person. He had specified in his will that he should be cremated at the Worli Prayer Hall and prayers in his memory should be recited for a year.
Gobhai continued at his canvas until he was struck by peripheral neuropathy and he could not control his hands and feet. As recalled Pinto, "It took his work from him. He was the man who had once wondered if his skill at life drawing was making his line glib and so he had shifted to his left hand and found that drawing came just as easily… If he could not do exactly what he wanted to do, if he could not control anything, he was not going to do anything…” Most recently, Gobhai’s work was on view at the exhibition "No Parsi is an Island” at the NGMA in Bombay and New Delhi.
The unconventional artist is survived by his brother Cavas.