Anjali Raghbeer, illustrated by Soumya Menon,
Barefoot Husain
The Veena Player
A Trail of Paint
My Name is Amrita…born to be an artist, with reproductions of art by Amrita Sher-Gil
(Looking at Art Series)
Tulika Books, 2009.

Ages: 7-10

In her Looking at Art picture book series, New Delhi resident Anjali Raghbeer introduces children to prominent Indian artists and their work. Raghbeer, who got her MBA in England and studied screenwriting in Los Angeles, is also an art collector and parent, and her project reflects a savvy understanding of how to bring art vividly alive in a child’s imagination.

In The Veena Player, an art restorer enlists her young niece’s help in restoring the canvases of Ravi Varma (1848-1906). Soon little Valsa is hearing “a delicate cough,” and the lovely veena player laments to Valsa that her hands are “chapped and flaking, almost like a ninety-year-old woman’s.” Later, after Valsa points out the damage to the lady’s hands in the painting and Auntie Prima repairs it, the veena player’s hands are restored to youth. Ravi Varma’s paintings of Indian gods and goddesses were the prototype for the proliferation of internationally popular Indian poster art in the 1960’s; Western adults may find the reproductions in this book surprisingly familiar.

Barefoot Husain, set in a “Museum of Modern Art,” begins with a little boy, Jai, getting separated from his schoolmates. He then encounters the painter Husain (1915~ ) and the two set off to find Husain’s lost shoes. When they need a horse, Husain sketches a stallion that comes alive and gallops off with Jai on his back. In the adventures that follow, Jai and young readers learn about abstract art. Soumya Menon’s comically appealing cartoons and reproductions of Husain’s energetic contemporary art illustrate the story.

A Trail of Paint, based on rampant real-life forgeries of Jamini Roy paintings, also explains how Roy incorporated and transformed ancient Indian art traditions. Biswajeet, a small boy guided by the ghost of Roy, stalks the forger, gathers evidence, and sets an indomitable auntie figure, Mashi, into a swirl of action to apprehend the culprit. Menon’s witty depiction of the bossy-looking Mashi is an entertaining counterpart to her illustrations of Biswajeet and his intrepid sleuthing.

My Name is Amrita…born to be an artist tells the story of Amrita Sher-Gil (1913-1941), a Hungarian-Indian artist who moved to India with her family as a child and later studied at the École National des Beaux Arts in Paris. Excerpts from Sher-Gil’s early journals and sketchbooks accompany Raghbeer’s notes on the artist’s life. The book demonstrates Sher-Gil’s development, from childhood drawings to work influenced by Cezanne and Modigliani to the more abstract representational work, richly-colored and minimally shaded, produced after her return to India.

The excellent Looking at Art volumes begin with a brief artist biography and conclude with additional examples of the artist's work, accompanied by a discussion of how to look at the paintings. The series entertainingly educates a child's eye to masterpieces of Indian art. Raghbeer’s upcoming series on Indian folk art promises further delights.

Charlotte Richardson
October 2010