Although he grew up alongside two very academic siblings, Manohar Mhatre was always in love with art. And while everyone took to accountancy and engineering, as was the norm eight decades ago, his parents left him to decide his career path. His father even introduced him to VS Adurkar, the first Indian director of Sir JJ School of Art, leading him to flourish as a student. This evening, the 89-year-old will see the opening of his retrospective at Byculla's Nine Fish Art Gallery.

The exhibition in association with Dot Line Space has been curated by Gourmoni Das and is titled Manohar Mhatre: the Progressive and the Personal – An Untitled Legacy. It comprises 60 works that showcase the artist's evolution. In the mid-50s, he began with drawings on the female form. In the following decade, he ventured into figurative, figure distortion and abstract works in oil. Then, he experimented with non-objective paintings and impressionist portraits, too. For the past 15 years, Mhatre practises a style he calls "progressive freestyle" where he introduces fabric into abstract art.
Mhatre carries a legacy of a movement that has been integral to the artistic fabric of the city — one which Husain, Souza, Raza and Ara espoused — The Bombay Progressive Artists' Group. "Our work conveys many subjective thoughts which the younger generation can easily learn. At the same time, the group broke the rules around traditional art forms, without being bothered about their image in society and did not fear that their art stands out from the traditional paintings and drawings," he shares.