Vitrum Studio’s Legacy in Glass and Giving

In 1957, a writer in The Times of India made a fleeting remark: "In Kemps Corner, something quietly dignified has been attempted in glass and tile… One hopes it does not go unnoticed." It didn't quite catch fire in its time, but today, that quiet dignity is finally receiving the recognition it deserves.

At the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery at CSMVS, the exhibition ‘A Glazed History: Badri Narayan and the Vitrum Studio' (on view till August 31) rekindles the memory of that modest yet radical design collective that once operated in the heart of south Bombay.

Vitrum was born from displacement. Polish Jewish émigré Simon Lifschutz, a glassmaker who arrived in India during the Second World War, turned to glassmaking not only as livelihood but as expression. With his wife Hanna, he established Vitrum Studio in 1957 as a philanthropic offshoot of their industrial glass factory. Their aim? To marry craftsmanship with artistic vision—and to make art functional, beautiful, and within reach.

So strong was Simon's sense of belonging that he even took the effort to learn Urdu as a gesture of respect and connection to those around him. As his son, architect Alex Lifschutz, recalls: "He had experienced such a warm welcome in India after two years as an impoverished refugee moving from Poland through Russia, China and Burma. He felt so at home."

Artists from Mumbai's modernist circles—Badri Narayan, Vijoo Sadwelkar, and others—were invited to paint on ceramic tiles, create mosaics and design objects like tabletops, lamps and trays. The aesthetic was tactile, vibrant, and quietly radical: neither elite nor mass-produced, it was art that could live in the everyday home.

For Badri Narayan (1929–2013), Vitrum was more than a studio. As its first and eventual chief artist, Narayan brought with him an idealism shaped by Ruskin, William Morris, and the Arts and Crafts movement. Drawing inspiration from Diego Rivera and the US Federal Art Project, he advocated for murals and public installations across Indian cities. His most visible contribution remains the glass mosaic mural for Charles Correa's Gandhi Darshan pavilion in Delhi—a surviving testament to what Vitrum aimed for: art woven into architecture and into civic identity.

In the 1960s and '70s, Narayan's handcrafted tiles sold for just 10–15, reflecting his belief that art should be accessible, democratic, and embedded in daily life. He envisioned a public art movement—ambitious, perhaps even idealistic, as the exhibition text acknowledges—but one that championed the social application of art.

Curated by Puja Vaish, ‘A Glazed History' is as much archaeology as it is an art show. It pieces together fragments—tiles from private collections, rare photographs, Films Division clips, architectural commissions—to reconstruct the life and legacy of a studio nearly lost to time. One of the richest sources was collector Haresh Mehta, who preserved dozens of original Vitrum pieces and shared long-forgotten anecdotes and materials.

The exhibition places Vitrum within the wider context of post-independence cultural nation-building. Supported by the Central Cottage Industries under Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, Vitrum's work stood at the confluence of craft revivalism and modernist aesthetics. For Narayan, this confluence also meant engaging with tradition while forging a contemporary voice—drawing on mythologies, folklore, and literature to create a symbolic vocabulary.

Vitrum Studio was also, as Alex Lifschutz recalls, a deeply personal endeavour. "Art was very important to my mother and father," he says. "Both had a hand in the Studio although my father was much more responsible for the factory." Simon, an engineer trained in industrial glass, also saw art as a civic commitment. "He wanted to create value—not just economic, but cultural, social and aesthetic."

That ethos extended to their charitable ventures, like teaching child beggars to make delicate glass animals. The studio's design itself embraced passive cooling, recycled materials, and thoughtful provisions for women workers—making Vitrum a forerunner of today's ethical design studios.

"There isn't a single ‘right time' for overlooked histories to surface," says Vaish. "But this one reminds us that art can be civic, democratic and collaborative." Vitrum's legacy, as Alex sees it, was always about creating value—not just economic, but social, cultural and aesthetic.