Important Notice

A pioneering figure in the field of modern Indian sculpture, Pilloo Pochkhanawala was never formally trained in art. Working in the advertising world, she turned to sculpture only after a commercial assignment took her to Europe in 1951. “Of course, once abroad, I took the opportunity of visiting the major museums. I did take in the vast collections of paintings, but every time I looked at the major works of modern sculptors I felt struck by a... A pioneering figure in the field of modern Indian sculpture, Pilloo Pochkhanawala was never formally trained in art. Working in the advertising world, she turned to sculpture only after a commercial assignment took her to Europe in 1951. “Of course, once abroad, I took the opportunity of visiting the major museums. I did take in the vast collections of paintings, but every time I looked at the major works of modern sculptors I felt struck by a visual bolt. Evidently, it was my sudden grasp of the third dimension that left me mortified by the sculptures…I was seized by the fear of the challenge of tackling something so difficult” (as quoted in S.V. Vasudev, Pilloo Pochkhanawala, Lalit Kala Akademi, New Delhi, 1981).

Pochkhanawala’s body of work, ranging from intricate theatrical sets to monumental public sculptures, explores and applies various materials, textures and techniques innovatively to engage with the concepts of time, space and nature, in a “rare marriage between form and content”, as Anahite Contractor notes. “Since Pochkhanawala first began to sculpt in 1951 at the relatively late age of twenty-eight, her obsession was to unscramble the tight boundaries of space which were available to her through the time she existed in. Her arrangement of motifs, the strategic use of negative space around them, the aesthetic disproportions and, occasionally, her violent distortions even within the abstract mode she chose to work with, render to Pochkhanawala’s sculpture a keen dynamism even today” (“Pilloo Pochkhanawala: Disharmony and Inner Mechanics”, Expressions & Evocations: Contemporary Women Artists of India, Marg Publications, Mumbai, 1996).

Born in Mumbai in 1923, Pochkhanawala receiving her Bachelor’s degree in Commerce from Bombay University. Since the early 1950s, she has held several solo exhibitions of her work, including shows in Bombay from 1955 to 1978 and in Delhi in 1965, 1968 and 1982. Her group shows include exhibitions at the Nash Gallery, University of Minnesota, in 1980; in Minnetonka, USA, in 1979; New Delhi in 1979 and 1970; Middleheim, Belgium, in 1974; Belgrade, Bangkok and Tokyo in 1967; and in London in 1963. In addition to exhibitions, the artist was commissioned to create several public sculptures, and has designed the sets for various stage productions. Pochkhanawala passed away in 1986.

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