K. H. Ara

Krishnaji Howlaji Ara was born in 1914 in Bolarum, near Secunderabad, the son of a chauffeur. His mother died when he was three. At seven he ran away to Bombay, which was home for the rest of his life, and earned his keep cleaning cars and later as a houseboy for an English family.

He painted whenever he could. Rudy von Leyden, art critic of the Times of India, noticed him, and so did Walter Langhammer, editor of The Illustrated Weekly of India, who encouraged him. Ara joined the Salt Satyagraha and spent five months in jail. At Independence he painted a large canvas of a procession, crowded with people celebrating.

His first solo show, at the Chetana restaurant in 1942, was a runaway success. He was a founding member of the Progressive Artists’ Group with Souza, Raza, Husain, Gade and Bakre, and the group set up the Artists’ Centre at Kala Ghoda. When Souza, Raza and others left India, the group came apart; Ara stayed in Bombay.

He began with landscapes and social themes but is remembered for still lifes and the female nude, which he was the first modern Indian painter to take up seriously while keeping within naturalism. He worked first in watercolour and gouache, sometimes so thickly that they read like oil, and later in oil itself. He showed his Black Nude series in Bombay in 1963 and was in the opening show of the Pundole Art Gallery. Opinion on him has stayed divided. He died in 1985.