Mahishasura was Tyeb Mehta's Signature

"My happiest moments are spent with myself and my art." - Tyeb Mehta.

Accomplished artist and aspiring filmmaker, Tyeb Mehta, who died in July in Mumbai was known for his weakness for bulls and the Mahishasura legend that he created. Over the past few years Mehta's art had created world records in London and New York.

A self-effacing, self-made creator, Mehta's Celebration, an acrylic-on-canvas triptych (240 x 510 cms.), acquired iconic status in 2002 and three years later, his 1997 painting of the buffalo-demon - Mahishasura - being overpowered by goddess Durga, was bought for US$1.58 million, a record for any artist of Indian origin. Since then value for his pieces surpassed the one-million dollar mark twice. Completed in 1956, when he was hardly 31, his Trussed Bull was a forerunner of greater successes.

Born in Kapadvanj, Gujarat, Mehta who got his art diploma in 1952 from J.J. School of Art in Mumbai, said recently, "'I always wanted to be a film maker. I never thought I would become an artist." He was 84. He was a contemporary of well-known names such as Husain (born 1915), Raza (born 1922) and Souza (1924-2002) of the Progressive Arts Group that was founded around India's independence movement (1947) to voice upcoming artists' interests. The New York Times said, he was "the leading light of India's first post-colonial generation of Modernists."

A three-minute short made in Tamil - Koodal - written and directed by Mehta won him the Filmfare Critics' Award in 1970. He also wrote a script on Mahasweta Devi's novel 'Hazaar Chaurasi ki Maa' that was directed by film producer, Govind Nihalani.

Mehta's repertoire included "falling figures" that included the bull, deities, people - some in pain and others in sad contemplation - a reflection of his state of mind around that period. His tones were layered with expressions of intense melancholy blended with fine distinctive lines that helped substantiate but not clarify the overall manifestation.

India honored Mehta in 2007 with a Padma Bhushan and earlier he had picked up the Dayawati Modi Foundation Award for Art & Culture. In 2006, Mehta had said, "I have always been a loner and am still quite a bit of a recluse. My happiest moments are spent with myself and my art." Works from his varied oeuvre will be on sale next month in New York.

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(A New York based independent trend writer, Raj S. Rangarajan reports on the art market, reviews books and films for media based in New York, Toronto, Canada, Seoul and India.)

RAJ S. RANGARAJAN