The renowned costume designer Bhanu Rajopadhye Athaiya , who died on October 15, was also a trained and skilled artist. Athaiya graduated f...
The renowned costume designer Bhanu Rajopadhye Athaiya, who died on October 15, was also a trained and skilled artist. Athaiya graduated from Mumbai’s JJ School of Art in 1952. She was the only woman to have three paintings at a show by the Progressive Artists’ Group in Mumbai in 1953. In 1982, she became the first Indian to win an Oscar, for Richard Attenborough’s biopic Gandhi.
Athaiya’s paintings and drawings were made between 1945 and 1952, before she set out to design costumes for Hindi films. A selection of her works will be auctioned by Prinseps Auction House & Gallery on December 2. The auction comprises 32 lots, which includes Athaiya’s drawings for the magazine Eve’s Weekly in the 1950s.
“Whilst we sadly lost Bhanu in October after a prolonged illness, we are determined to share her incredible legacy with the world,” Prinseps said in a foreword to the auction catalogue. “For those of us moved to do what we do for the sake of art and art historical discovery, to chance upon an estate such as that of Bhanu Athaiya is an extraordinary moment of serendipity.”
In her autobiography The Art of Costume Design (HarperCollins India, 2010), Athaiya wrote, “Noticing my interest in art, my father engaged a person to teach me paper craft...
