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Sabavala, Jehangir I

Jehangir Sabavala: A painter & gentleman bows out Namita Devidayal, TNN | Sep 3, 2011, 06.58AM IST

Writing about Jehangir Sabavala, who died on Friday morning a week after his 89th birthday, is like crafting an obituary to elegance. Sabavala, one of India's most beloved painters represented the quiet and understated civility that has become as rare as the pastel-coloured Fiat he drove for many years.

Many who may have encountered Sabavala in Mumbai, at an art opening or a private gathering, would be quick to suggest that his mannerisms were a tad extreme. But he belonged to a bygone planet and was fundamentally different from the arrivistes who sought to acquire his paintings with ostentatious haste. He lived in the old Altamount Road.

Sabavala was a gracious gentleman who took care of the smallest detail. He was always impeccably dressed, silk cravat neatly tucked into his shirt collar and moustaches twirled just so. In fact, if he weren't so brilliant, he could almost have been dismissed as a dandy.

Fellow artist and dear friend Mehlli Gobhai, recalls one of his visits to his Golwad wadi. Because they were short-staffed, Sabavala picked up the broom and started sweeping the floor with near-choreographed elegance. Even in that remote tribal area, he was perfectly turned out in his indigo robe and matching pyjamas. "Diwali and New Years certainly won't be the same at Golwad," says Gobhai.

Writer Jerry Pinto, also a fixture at Chez Gobhai in Golwad, says, "When I first met him, I was sure that the patina of elegance was a put-on. And then, I realized that here was truly the intersection of civilization and civility."

Sabavala was to the manner born. His mother Bapsy came from the aristocratic Cowasjee Jehangir family which was responsible for setting up some of the biggest institutions in the city, from the Gothic building that houses Elphinstone College to the University Convocation Hall. Bapsy is still remembered with awe for her flamboyance-an animal-lover who once had a horse climb the stairs of the Taj Mahal hotel to perform in the ballroom and a doll collector who would take her dolls on outings, driven by a poker-faced chauffeur.

Sabavala travelled widely, both in India and Europe, from the time he was a child. He was educated at the Cathedral and John Connon School in Mumbai, later at Elphinstone and finally at the JJ School of Arts. It was in London that he met his future wife Shirin, who was studying at the London School of Economics. From 1947 to 1951, Sabavala lived and studied art in Paris, a period that proved to be crucial to his subsequent work. The Sabavalas returned to Mumbai and gradually grew into one of the city's most engaging social couples. Their daughter Aafreed was born in 1959.

Despite his monumental success as a painter, Sabavala remained close to his small circle of old-timer friends. One of them, Malti Divecha, recalls how both of them had come home from hospital on the same day after their respective surgeries a few years ago. "But the very next day, he came to see me," she says. "I was so touched."

Sabavala was able to engage with people of all ages and social strata with equal ease-whether it was a friend's grandchild or an art buyer. "He always expressed an intelligent curiosity in the lives of others," says friend Nancy Adajania. "When we met him a few days ago we were taken aback by the lifeforce ablaze in his eyes," she recalls. Writer Richard Lannoy once wrote to them, "Your social self, the mask you put on for social occasions, is a very elaborately wrought item, as if straight from the workshop of the finest Renaissance or Baroque or Mughal goldsmith!" Another friend, while mourning at the Chandanwadi funeral on Friday, said, "When you met the Sabavalas, your faith in civilization was restored."

When I was being interviewed for membership at a Mumbai club, Sabavala was my 'sponsor' and had to accompany me at a gathering of members. After making small talk, one member turned to him and said, "And what do you do?" It was like asking Ratan Tata what he did for a living. Without the slightest sense of affront, Sabavala replied, "Sir, I am a painter."

Sabavala, Jehangir II

Sabavala, another Modern master, fetches record Rs 1.7cr at auction

New Delhi: The market for India’s modern masters seems to be sizzling. After Raza became the priciest modern by notching up over Rs 16 crore at an auction in London recently, another master — the 88-year-old Jehangir Sabavala — set a new world auction record for his work. Casuarina Line, a serene landscape which Sabavala brought alive with his brush, fetched Rs 1.7 crore at a Saffronart auction on Monday. This was almost four times the pre-sale estimate of Rs 50 lakh.

The Parsi artist who lives in Mumbai is currently grappling with lung cancer. Sabavala’s career has spanned more than sixty years since his first solo exhibition held in the Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai, put up with the help of fellow artist M F Husain and some carpenters. His last exhibition was in 2008.

Husain too recorded another first at the Saffronart auction with an untitled composition by him becoming the most expensive art work sold via mobile phone bid. It sold for Rs 1.06 crore ($235,750). The auction saw Rs 4.2 crore of winning bids coming on the mobile phone, said Dinesh Vazirani, chief executive officer and cofounder of auction house Saffronart. ‘‘The response to the new mobile application launched by Saffronart was quite unexpected. We weren’t expecting buyers to make bids that ran into crores over the phone,’’ he said. The application has been developed by the technology team of Saffronart and is available on Blackberry, iPhone and Nokia phones.

The summer sale sold 81 per cent of the 90 lots at Rs 30 crore ($6.7 million). ‘‘The Indian art market is now on a sustained growth path. The collector base has widened with museums keen to build good collections,’’ said Vazirani