Silent Expressions

Shroff first began fiddling with colours when he was four years old. ‘‘He had told me how his grandfather was amazed at the drawings that emerged from the colours he had bought Salim,’’ wife Gauri Shroff recalls, adding, ‘‘Salim was a born artist. I always said that it was God’s gift to him because he loved him a little more.’’

That, and his sensitivity to colours, helped take his art from the office space into the gallery. ‘‘Most of his paintings were hung around our advertising office in Crawford Market. Any new painting he would make, his staff would claim it saying, ‘Sir, keep this one in the office’. In 1996, our client Gabbana, who on their visits to our office saw the paintings, asked Salim to exhibit some of his works in their gallery attached to their shop. That was his first exhibition as an artist as an amateur he showed in his college in the ’70s,’’ says Gauri. Sketches all over his school books and class notes only paved the way for the born-artist. ‘‘He often told me that he was the first student from his school Barnes School in Devlali to pass the intermediate art exam,’’ Gauri says.

Vibrant and enthusiastic, the successful advertising executive who worked in various advertising agencies in New York for three years including the well-known Young and Rubicam, was popular with everyone he met. ‘‘For his last exhibition at Nehru Centre, many professors from JJ turned up because they read about the show,’’ she says. He treated them all warmly especially his rural paintings (which Gauri believes were influenced by childhood visits to his village). “Then there were his works which were influenced by his visit to England. They remind many of the old Mumbai with ornate street-lamps. During the showing of this particular series, a customer liked one of the paintings and asked for a discount. However, Salim refused, saying that the amount will anyway be passed on to those who needed it and that he could not compromise on that. Finally, it was bought for the listed price. A week later, he called Salim up and told him that everyday he found something new in the painting and that he felt he had paidless for the work!†says Gauri.

However, what propelled Salim to the center of public eye was his Ganesha series which “despite very little exposure became highly popular.†In its catalogue, Salim insisted that the Lord virtually “painted himself†across his work and that he was only a channel of expression for Ganesha to manifest. Using flat colours to denote the headpiece, or the palm of the deity, Salim felt the subject was so strong and powerful that there were infinite possibilities to play with the form. Doing the series, he felt, was a divine experience. Critics had then lauded the works as Ashtavinayaka himself.

Salim had hoped to follow his last show at Nehru Centre with more such exhibitions. “He particularly wanted to have shows for the physically challenged, street children and orphans,†says Gauri. Wanting to reach his remaining 40 paintings to appreciative hands and help the causes that touched him, Gauri says: “Now that the sorrow of losing him has touched me, I know how he felt. He did not need sorrow to feel what he did and that’s what made him a sensitive artist. Initially, I did not feel like giving his work away, because that is all I am left with. But I don’t think he would have liked it.â€

…. As he wrote in one of his exhibition catalogues: “Since I am unable to express my ecstacy when a painting is taking shape, I can only complete it and share the joy with you.â€