Sabavala at the Museum

Jehangir Sabavala’s connect with the city of his birth and the cradle of his illustrious career will remain forever as part of Bombay’s Prince of Wales Museum (now called the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya). His wife Shireen and daughter Aafreed have donated the senior artist’s last six works to the Museum, along with the effects from his studio. These will be on display on the second floor of the Museum, mentions a report in Mumbai Mirror (MM) of May 28, 2015.

Jehangir Sabavala: on permanent display

The artist, who succumbed to cancer in September 2011, had worked on his final paintings between 2009 and 2010. "The works would just be sitting here, wrapped up,” Shireen told MM. "We’d rather share them with the city.” Sabavala’s family has also reportedly donated a substantial sum to the Museum for the upkeep of the paintings. After her husband passed away Shireen had maintained his studio on Altamont Road keeping his paints, brushes and canvases neatly arranged where he had placed them. These items have now been donated to the Museum along with news clippings, photographs, catalogs and sketches of his works. Every detail of Sabavala’s life has been archived by a volunteer who worked at his studio for many months, MM notes. The meticulous master had maintained a detailed record of every painting he had created and every one of them is traceable today.
The last six oil on canvas works, titled Brown Landscape, The Cobras, The Eye, The Raven, Blue Seascape and The Unfinished Landscape, are being treated at the Museum Art Conservation Centre and there are plans to hold a preview at the Curator’s Gallery soon, Sabyasachi Mukherjee, its director general informed MM.
The family had also set up the Jehangir Sabavala Foundation and hosted the first memorial lecture in October 2012 by Richard Lannoy, painter, author and photographer. The Foundation will oversee the display of the donated items at the Museum, mentioned MM.