A Gallery of Dreams

Now,nearly 10 years after he passed away at the age of 86,Nicholson’s dream has finally come true — the Jehangir Nicholson Gallery at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya,Mumbai,opened on Monday. The gallery is spread over 4,500 sq ft,with 3,500 sq ft devoted to viewing space,and 1,000 sq ft to storage. Inaugurating this majestic space is an exhibition titled Six Decades: Celebrating the Bombay Artists from the Jehangir Nicholson Collection.

Scheduled to run till the end of August,this show will be followed by other curated exhibitions.

Apart from this,the Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation also has a research centre and an open storage with all the paintings placed in sliding panels.

At the time of his death,Nicholson’s collection stood at close to 800 paintings by more than 250

Indian artists,including works by Tyeb Mehta,Krishen Khanna,Ram Kumar,FN Souza and Vasudeo Gaitonde. Not limiting himself to the modern artists,however,he also bought works by contemporary artists such as Jitish Kallat and Anjolie Ela Menon,and made a special attempt to collect works by female artists.

In his will,Nicholson,a cotton merchant-turned-art patron,had requested his nephew Cyrus Guzder and his lawyer Kaiwan Kalyaniwalla — both appointed as his trustees — to liquidate his assets and set up a foundation that would manage his art collection. The Jehangir Nicholson Art Foundation was thus formed. A few years later,a partnership was formed with the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya and the foundation for the gallery Nicholson dreamed of was laid.

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