Untitled

Perhaps best known for her bronze sculptures, Meera Mukherjee also made forays into other media over the course of her career, including painting, drawing, book illustration and textile art. The present lot, one of the first textiles designed by the artist to be offered at auction, is part of a body of kantha embroidery that Mukherjee produced in the 1980s, a continuation of her longstanding interest in craftsmanship, materiality, and tradition.

Kantha is the centuries-old art, largely practiced by rural women in Bengal, of reusing cloth and threads from worn garments to create new embroidered textiles. To create a kantha, one typically starts with plain, white cotton fabric, often taken from a dhoti, before decorating with colored threads pulled from other clothes, often the border of a sari. The iconography of kantha embroidery varies widely, and can encompass nature, religious icons, abstract motifs, current events, and even cartoon characters. Kanthas also vary between simple and elaborate, a reflection of the needs of the maker and the purpose of the textile: they have been variously used as blankets, book covers and even diapers. Some are passed down from generation to generation as heirlooms. Historic kanthas serve as valuable glimpses into everyday life, showcasing women’s experiences across class, caste, and religious backgrounds. While the practice of kantha declined in the early twentieth century, it was revived in the 1970s and 1980s when the Indian and Bangladeshi governments invested in craftsmanship. Simultaneously, artists like Mukherjee, K.G. Subramanyan and Jyoti Bhatt also aided its revival as they sought to document and derive inspiration from tribal, rural, and folk art.

However, Mukherjee did not just borrow from these traditions and the people who practiced them. For her, creating kanthas was a collaborative and mutually beneficial process. First, she would visit villages around Kolkata and encourage and teach local children to draw. She would then use the children’s drawings as the basis for her textile designs. Finally, she would commission village women to create the kanthas using her designs, paying them for their labor and sharing the profits after she sold the finished products. The bold, graphic quality of this embroidered textile reflects Mukherjee’s characteristic fusion of historical practices with the visual language of modern art. Despite her engagement with modernism, Mukherjee rejected any hierarchy between artist and artisan, instead positing that artists should aspire to be like artisans, and emulate their labor, craftsmanship, and devotion. Mukherjee’s kantha quilts are a reflection of this conviction, and her deep respect for traditional forms of artistic labor.