Museum in the tower

Dr Swati Piramal vividly remembers the first painting she gifted her husband Ajay It was 1977 and the couple was celebrating their first wedding anniversary ldquoI bought him a Prabhakar Barwe painting mdash an orange one with a beautiful sun mdash for a princely sum of R5000rdquo says Swati It was her first art purchase ldquoWe were young then Now we are more knowledgeable we make that effort to understand art But we go by the painting rather than the artist We purchase a work only if we like itrdquo continues Swati vicechairperson of Piramal Enterprises LtdSmriti the first exhibition at the Piramal Museum of Art at Piramal Tower Lower Parel opens on Thursday to the public PicBipin KokateWhich is why the new Piramal Museum of Art which opens to the public this Thursday promises to be an intimate setting where namedropping grandstanding and extraordinary pricing will be avoided Of course there will be the strapping Souzas and the elegant Ravi Varmas but more importantly the first exhibition of 60 works titled Smriti is a meacutelange of the distinct personalities of the Piramal family tiedup neatly by Ashvin Rajagopalan director of the Piramal Art FoundationThe museum resembles a cube but works like a nautilus you move from an outer shell of the Bengal School to reach a core of contemporary artists like the Daliesque duo Thukral and Tagra ldquoThatrsquos part of my daughter Nandinirsquos collection of contemporary art Itrsquos so eclectic that I cannot relate to it As a family we are all differentrdquo says Swati whose prized collection is a set of 12 Persianinfluenced miniatures Her husband takes to the Bombay Progressives whereas son Anand goes in for the more emerging lotAjay Piramal and Dr Swati PiramalOn the tenth floor of Lower Parelrsquos Piramal Tower is Ajay Piramalrsquos office where the corridors are ridiculously spacious mdash sunlight filters in wellheeled executives make their calls seated under canvases by Raza and Husain and suits talk money around coffee tables shaped like lotus leaves It is sometimesgallery sometimesmeeting area And it is on the ground floor of this very tower with its bluepanelled faccedilade like every other corporate edifice in Lower Parel where the Piramal Museum of Art is housed Corporate executives hover around the museum and some are stopped in the nick of time from touching the artworks Curiosity runs amok in the tower these days ldquoLower Parel is in the heart of the city and is known for its restaurants rather than museums This will make it a new art destination for the publicrdquo says SwatiSmriti a museum of collections is the tangible avatar of a book by the same name published by the Piramal Art Foundation in March this year At 537 pages the book is heavyweight it tracks the chronology of 57 artists and over 160 works all part of the Piramal collection For Rajagopalan who coauthored the book with Vaishnavi Ramanathan this was an understanding of the familyrsquos ldquotastes choices and ideasrdquo Rajagopalan joined the Piramals in 2009 advising them on their art acquisitions marking the transition for the family from buyers to collectorsThe dynamics between family and advisordirector is where emotional buys and historical value strike out each other to shape a wellrounded collection worth your time ldquoWe think of the lsquobestrsquo works mdash those which will be recognised over time and where there is sizeable information for them The Piramals are not visible buyers and shy away from price tags So we donrsquot have a major Amrita SherGil or a Tyeb Mehta We prefer FN Souzarsquos landscapes to his Birth the highestselling Indian work of artrdquo says RajagopalanldquoWhile museums label their collections in Marathi most galleries donrsquot Keeping in mind the average local visitor we wanted to be inclusiverdquo Rajagopalan explains about the neat Marathi instruction at the bottom of the walltext At Piramalrsquos annexe building the museumrsquos research centre boasts of reams of literature on Indian fine art and doublesup as Rajagopalanrsquos office The director calls it a ldquodemocraticrdquo space where archives essays and catalogues will be open to both students and artscholars preferably by appointment Next month the Foundation opens an artresidency in Thane on Piramalrsquos ongoing realty development project where midcareer artists can spend time and resources onground Emerging artists will find one more name they can approach for supportBy opening up their private collection to the public the Piramals join families like the Nadars and the Poddars ldquoWe have to encourage art to the public or we lose our sensibilities as human beings and forget the finer things of life Art should be in everyonersquos lives irrespective of the economic strata you come from and we hope to achieve this by supporting artists and building collections that people can enjoyrdquo says AjayBut we Indians love a good struggle and hardearned rewards so what will we have to say about an art collection coming from Ajay who has a net worth of 8 billion and ranks among the 100 richest Indians in Forbesrsquo list this year ldquoMr Piramal is known to be a spiritual man That you go to work to lsquomakersquo money but not lsquoforrsquo money is what he is known to live by What do we remember the Rockefellers forrdquo says Rajagopalan