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When the art show Mehlli Gobhai: Epiphanies, comprising 95 art works in various media and about 10 archival objects went on display on July 27, 2021 at Gallery Chemould Prescott Road (CPR), co-curators Ranjit Hoskote and Nancy Adajania said they were "both relieved and very happy that Mehlli can ride again,” Epiphanies includes Gobhai’s (died 2018) work from the New York and Bombay phases of his life. On display are drawings, graphic works, sculptures and notebooks, as well as glimpses of his work as an author of children’s books. The artist’s little known polychrome paintings of the mid 1970s, life studies and figurative drawings and Pahari miniatures figure prominently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The show traces his passage, from the late 1970s across the 1980s, towards the dark, brooding palette of black, grey and umber which he is better associated,” noted the Gallery’s press kit. The show, which will be open till August 31includes about 20 works that were not shown in a retrospective titled "Don’t ask me about color” at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in March 2020 (see "In memory of Mehlli” and "Don’t ask me about color,” Parsiana, September 7-20, 2020). That show had to be curtailed in about 10 days due to the restrictions brought on by the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. 
Adajania reflected on the two exhibitions in an email to Parsiana. "It was the outcome of years of research, thinking, and documentation. Each of its chapters portrayed the evolution of different phases of Mehlli’s oeuvre, as well as his expanded practice as an advertising professional, illustrator of children’s books, collector of classical art, as well as rare 8 mm footage that he had filmed while on his travels through North India. While it is impossible to replicate the grandeur of the NGMA exhibition at CPR, we took heart in the fact that the ascending vertical spiral of the NGMA could be replaced by an intimate horizontal spiral at CPR where viewers could access the exhibition from multiple vantage points… As a viewer, wherever you turn, you will see various glimpses of the artist’s journey.” Standing at the entrance, for instance, in front of you are the black and whites and on your left the highly colored ones. "We re-configured the contents (of the NGMA show) in an editorial spirit,” noted Hoskote.
"We see Epiphanies as a persuasive invitation to the universe of Gobhai… We have focused on the breakthrough moments in Mehlli’s practice — the moments when he was struck, as though with the force of a revelation, by a new pictorial proposition, a new set of techniques, a new external stimulus, a new approach to his form and material,” noted both the curators. "With the cordial support of the artist’s estate and Shireen Gandhy of CPR, we are very happy to have developed a museum-level exhibition in a gallery context.”                                     F. J.