Tyeb Mehta (Bearing Weight with the lightness of being)

The first comprehensive book devoted to Tyeb Mehta’s practice since his death in 2009, and the most complete account of his work yet assembled in a single volume.

One of the defining painters of India’s first postcolonial generation, Tyeb Mehta spent five decades distilling the upheavals he witnessed—Partition, displacement, and the everyday asymmetries of life in a newly independent nation—into a visual language of remarkable economy. Through recurring motifs—the bull, the falling figure, the falling bird, the diagonal, and his radical reimagining of Kali and Mahishasura—he forged a body of work at once deeply personal and profoundly universal.

Growing out of a landmark retrospective at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art, New Delhi, this volume traces the evolution of that language across every medium Mehta worked in—painting, drawing, sculpture, and his rarely seen 1970 directorial short film Koodal. Featuring forewords, a curatorial note, and a rich suite of essays, the book ranges from expansive assessments of Mehta’s practice to focused studies of individual works and mediums. Tyeb Mehta stands as the definitive record of an artist who transformed the fractures of the 20th century into enduring form.

With contributions by Roobina Karode, Ashok Vajpeyi, Gieve Patel, Aditi Ghildiyal, and Srinivas Aditya Mopidevi.