Beauty under hammer to educate kids

NEW DELHI: It was just a coincidence that Prime Minister Narendra ‘NaMo’ Modi joined hands with artist Satish Gupta to “collaborate” on a painting titled Om Namo Shivay. A mix of sculpture and painting on a single canvas, the work, says Gupta, is inspired by the Chola bronzes, particularly the Shiva idols at the Brihadeshwara temple in Thanjavur.
Inspired by the work, Modi added a couple of brushstrokes to the canvas.“It now has Namo written three times at the bottom,” says the Delhi-based Sanskriti awardee.
The painting will now be part of the ‘India on Canvas’ auction on January 15. The event is being organized by Khushii, a philanthropic organization headed by former cricketer Kapil Dev. It works to provide education to underprivileged children.
Some celebrities have added creative touches to the canvases while others have opted to simply endorse them. Finance minister Arun Jaitley and actor Shah Rukh Khan are among those who put their names to the works of eminent Indian artists that will go under the hammer.
“Our target is to educate around 10,000 children by 2016,” says Vivek Khushalani, president of Khushii. “About Rs 12,000 is the cost of education of one child in a given year. Since people are often reluctant to simply hand over money, we decided to offer them a chance to bid for artworks painted not just by a celebrated artist but also endorsed by achievers in different fields.”
Khushlani says the PM just needed a phone call to join the project: “He readily agreed to discover the latent artist in him.” Jaitley put his signature on the back of Gupta's painting 1000 Names of Vishnu. “He said he picked this work because he was a Vishnu devotee,” says Gupta.
Manu Parekh worked with orthopaedic surgeon Dr Ashok Rajgopal to create a Varanasi landscape. “He was with me right from the inception of this painting. I let him do some basic strokes and then worked on them,” says Parekh who hopes the auction will help “more and more kids”.
Ranbir Kaleka’s art combining video and painting was created with hotelier Sandeep Gupta. “I've used the pool at his Delhi hotel to create a metaphorical image. Of course, Sandeep is a performer in it,” says the 62-year-old.
About 45 paintings are collaborations with celebrities like eminent lawyer Ram Jethmalani, fashion designers Gauri and Nainika Karan, industrialists Kiran Mazumdar Shaw and Arti Kirloskar, among others. Author Chetan Bhagat, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Bollywood personalities Vishal and Rekha Bhardwaj, Farah Khan and cricketers Sunil Gavaskar and Shoaib Akhtar are among those who have endorsed the works.
The auction that is being conducted by Sotheby’s will take place at the residence of the British high commissioner.