How soon in their career should an artist’s retrospective be held?

From established to mid-career artists, we look at the purpose of retrospectives and their relevance to the stakeholders involved

Earlier this year, on the sidelines of the opening of ‘Essential Forms: An Exhibition of M.F. Husain’s Cut-outs’ at Emami Art in Kolkata, Ina Puri, the curator of the show, recounted visiting the iconic artist’s studio and how the cut-outs were born out of his own experience as an apprentice at a toy factory, when he decided to use those skills to make these cutouts for his children.

“Sometimes you learn about art from universities or from the artists themselves, which was the case with Husain,” Puri had said then. Husain’s cutouts are some of his least-talked-about works that found their way into common parlance through facilitators like Puri, who were well-versed with his work—and were willing to offer us a glance into Husain’s life. While there have been career-wide retrospectives, Husain’s cut-outs remain mostly unseen, and this is where a retrospective is relevant—to do justice to an artist’s body of work. 

Archiving and collectivising

As Himmat Shah talks about ‘Hammer on the Square,’ a retrospective of his works at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA) in 2016, the excitement in his voice is palpable. “I was taken aback when they got in touch with me about it, but I was happy that they wanted to put in that effort to trace my works and mount an exhibition,” says the 89-year-old artist, who, until then, was “making art to make money”. For Shah, the retrospective offered him the opportunity to archive his entire body of work until then, which KNMA graciously did. 

"While archiving is important to understand an artist's ideas, inspirations and artistic practices, it is not enough to understand the finer aspects. Retrospectives exhibit a vast body of work that puts into context and helps one to understand practices that ultimately shape their understanding of art," says Sunaina Anand, director of New Delhi-based Art Alive Gallery. Padma Shri award-winning artist Paresh Maity echoes Anand's thoughts as he highlights the importance of a retrospective in tracing an artist's journey. "It's effective to understand the stylistic development of an artist," he shares. 

Timing of a retrospective

While most artists reserve their retrospectives for the latter part of their careers, some have also had mid-career retrospectives—for example, artist Jitish Kallat’s mid-career retrospective ‘Here After Here’ in 2017 at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) in New Delhi to mark his 25-year career. Maity recently mounted ‘Infinite Light,’ a travelling exhibition spanning five cities in India. “Mid-career retrospectives like ‘Infinite Light’ have received a phenomenal response from audiences. Taking note of the various mediums, colours and imagery of an artist like Maity in one exhibition helped the audience to understand the essence of his practice in a broader sense,” says Anand about the exhibition. Maity, however, is careful not to refer to the exhibition as a “retrospective”. “Yes, it does show my progression as an artist, but this is not a retrospective, it’s a magnum opus,” says the 58-year-old artist.

On the other hand, Shah believes in having a relative body of work to mount a retrospective. “I believe KNMA got in touch with me because I had been making art for a while by then. With a larger body of work, it’s easier to tell the artist’s story,” says Shah, who had 300 works on display for his retrospective. Along with his famous terracotta sculptures, bronzes and drawings, the show brought to light his lesser-known mediums and extraordinary body of works—high-relief murals, burnt paper collages and silver paintings—hardly seen by the Indian art fraternity and public at large, said KNMA in its exhibition dossier. 

Reception of retrospectives

Hosting a retrospective, largely, is a decision that the art world is happy to leave to its artists and curators. Twenty-three-year-old art history student Angela Diwan believes retrospectives are educational. “For me, even a mid-career retrospective allows one to understand the progression of an artist’s practice.” Somak Mitra, director of Art Exposure in Kolkata, who is preparing for a retrospective of eminent artist Jogen Chowdhury’s works in March 2023, believes art lovers, collectors and buyers alike appreciate retrospectives. “Those invested in a particular artist’s work can understand the significance of a retrospective. I’ve personally seen their delight at the prospect of witnessing one. A good retrospective takes you back in time and brings you back to the artist’s current situation regarding their work. It broadens your understanding of the artist’s creations within the context of a historical framework,” says Mitra, who cited Chowdhury’s early impression of the Partition as a significant impact on his art, as an example of this. “The space in which he creates his art now is vastly different, but knowledge and appreciation are only understood within an appropriate context, which in this case is the retrospective,” he adds.

Puri underscores the importance of retrospectives, saying, “The importance of a retrospective exhibition is invaluable. Recently, we were able to see a brilliantly curated retrospective of Somnath Hore at the KNMA. Even for a person like me who has access to art through personal collections, it was quite a wonderful treat.”

Shah recalls how people from Japan visited his retrospective and how touched he was by that. “I did not know these people, but they had come down to simply catch a glimpse of my work and left me touching letters,” he says. Maity remembers being particularly struck by a retrospective that he had attended of 87-year-old artist A Ramachandran at the NGMA, New Delhi. “It portrayed the artist’s journey in its entirety so beautifully,” says Maity. “For an art-lover or art collector, the importance of a retrospective lies in understanding nuances such as when the artist’s practice changes. For example, how I used to paint when I started is not the same as what I do now. And it is this poetry of practice that a retrospective so dearly—and importantly—attempts to recreate for all stakeholders in the art community,” says Maity.

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