A peek into Air India’s magnificent collection of art

At the National Gallery of Modern Art, Mumbai, get a glimpse of 7,000 paintings and art works collected by Air India over the past 80 years

Air India recently displayed a series of art works, meticulously collected over 80 years, at its booking offices, lounges, and pavilions across the globe. The collection gives travellers a glimpse into India’s rich artistic heritage.

Air India pavilions across the world dazzled with displays of gold zari embroidered and woven textiles, gilded Tanjore paintings, polychrome wooden temple sculptures, and replicas of classical South Indian bronze figurines — dolls with musical instruments such as the sitar, veena and tabla. .There are traditional phadand pichwai paintings from Rajasthan, kalamkaris from Andhra Pradesh, Tanjore glass paintings and an exquisite array of textiles and jewellery as well as decorative art. These form a collection of 7,000 paintings and artworks by Indian artists.

Earlier this year, the Ministry of Civil Aviation officially decided to hand over these artworks to the Ministry of Culture and house these paintings at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Mumbai.

“In 2017 there were discussions on what to do with such a large collection; having it in a store room and taking it out for the public are two different things. This is where we came in: to preserve and examine the health of the paintings, exhibit them for the public and promote art,” says Shruti Das, Deputy Curator, NGMA. “This exhibition is just a small step towards the processes we are going to start post this exhibition. We need to collect data, document and archive these valuable paintings. Research will help understand how these art works were collected and  the artists who painted these. We are yet to check the age of the rest of the paintings, the ones in the exhibition are mostly from the 1960s, 70s, and 80s,” adds Shruti.

Some of these works (around 200 paintings and artworks) are now being displayed in a thematic exhibition titled Maharaja’s Treasure: Select Works of Art from the Famed Air India Collection, at NGMA, Mumbai.

“This is the first celebration of the iconic collection which pioneered promoting Indian heritage across the globe. The exhibition is curated, designed, and mounted by team NGMA, showcasing select artworks of great masters, segregated into themes such as festivals, divinity, landscapes, abstract vision, women, music, and dance,” said Nazneen Banu, Director of NGMA.

On entering NGMA, one is greeted with the statue of the iconic Air India Maharaja, and the celebrated works of artists such as MF Husain, KH Ara, VS Gaitonde, NS Bendre, GR Santosh, Manu Parekh, B Prabha, Anjolie Ela Menon, Piloo Pochkhanawala, Raghav Kaneria and B Vithal to name a few. An untitled canvas by Gaitonde from the 1970s, stands prominent, evoking a serene mood through the warm hues spread across the canvas. The highlight of this section is the famous ashtray designed by surrealist Salvador Dali which is in the form of a sea shell with a serpent coiled around its rim and supported by elephant heads. But when seen from the other side, the elephant heads resemble swans.