Recounting the glory of Taj and its contribution to Indian art

A special news report, entitled ‘Mumbai Restoration Includes Art’ in the New York Times, recounts the glory of Taj and its contribution to Indian art. Here are the excerpts of the essay:

Sitting on the harbor across the street from the Gateway of India, a monument commissioned under British rule, the Taj has long been a symbol of Mumbai. Built at a time when many hotels prohibited Indians from even entering, the Taj was reportedly built by its founder, Jamsetji N. Tata, as a place where Indians would be welcome and could mingle with the British on something like equal terms.

Though in recent years galleries have sprung up across Mumbai and New Delhi, there was a time when it was a central hub for Indian art. Until the early 1990s its Taj Gallery was one of just a handful of places where admirers and collectors could go to see and buy contemporary art in Mumbai. “A lot of the artists that earned reputations for themselves in the ’70s and ’80s — people like B. Prabha — had a lot of shows there,” said Abhay Sardesai, editor of Art India, a Mumbai magazine. “It was an important space.”

Other divisions of the Tata Group, which started and still owns the Taj, also contributed significantly to India’s modern-art scene by buying works, especially in the 1950s and 1960s, said Gayatri Sinha, an art critic and curator. “The Tatas really stand out for having made the right investments in art at the right time.” Closed during a renovation nearly 10 years ago, the Taj Gallery never reopened, but in recent years the hotel has devoted more attention to its own collection, started by the wife of the hotel’s manager in the 1960s. The management is keen to see that the venue and its status as a hub for quality art gets enhanced again...