In one gallery at the Kiran Nadar Museum of Art (KNMA), Saket, a blue bird hangs in the split second before it hits the ground. Its claws look almost like a human hand, and a sharp diagonal line cuts across the canvas, making the whole painting feel tilted. If you stand there for a while, the bird almost seems to move. That feeling runs through Tyeb Mehta: Bearing Weight (with the lightness of being), the first large retrospective of the artist, organised to mark his birth centenary. Presented with the Tyeb Mehta Foundation and the Saffronart Foundation, and curated by Roobina Karode, the show, running till June 30, brings together more than 120 works, including paintings, drawings, sculptures, film and rare archival material.
As you move through the exhibition, one thing becomes clear. Tyeb Mehta was deeply concerned with struggle. His figures are rarely relaxed. They bend, fall, twist or seem caught under pressure. The early works from the 1950s, including the Rickshaw Puller series, already show this. In one work, a bull appears placed on top of a rickshaw, its body heavy and strained. It represents labour, the burden of survival. The bull became a repeated image in Mehta’s work which continued almost till the end of his life. Often tied with ropes or shown just before slaughter, the bull stands for helplessness and also endurance.
Anatomy of Struggle
This tension between reverence and violence becomes even stronger in Koodal, Mehta’s 16-minute black and white film made in 1970 for the Films Division of India. In a dark room in the exhibition, the film plays on loop. It shows scenes of slaughter along with everyday life and ritual. The word ‘Koodal’ means ‘meeting point’ in Tamil. In the film, different opposites meet, such as human and animal, faith and survival. Outside the screening room, visitors can see Mehta’s handwritten scripts, letters and notes.
Curator Roobina Karode says these notes and drawings help us understand Mehta better. Many people think he was only focused on destruction and violence. But she explains that when Mehta spoke about “destroying,” he meant it mainly in terms of the canvas. He would break forms, cut shapes, and disrupt the image in order to create something new. For him, destruction was part of building the painting. At the same time, he was deeply thinking about human suffering, not just big historical events, but the daily struggles of ordinary people living under the shadow of history.
The memory of Partition is present in many works, even if it is not shown directly. Mehta had witnessed the violence of 1947, and that experience stayed with him. We see it in his falling figures, split bodies and tense compositions. In his paintings of Mahishasura, the mythological figure appears half-bull and half-man, caught between two forms. In his images of Kali, the goddess evolves over time, from early sketches to powerful, simplified forms. Her face often has no clear expression. The body is heavy, strong, but full of inner energy.
Diagonal Shift
Karode believes that this is why Mehta’s work still feels relevant. He was someone who thought deeply about what was happening around him, whether it was Partition or the uncertainty of daily life. Artists, she says, absorb the tensions of their time and transform them into images. That allows viewers, even today, to see their own fears and questions reflected back at them.
One of Mehta’s most important artistic tools was the diagonal line. From the late 1960s onward, he began using strong diagonal divisions in his paintings. This simple shift changed everything. The diagonal creates depth and tension. It makes the painting feel active. Mehta had studied cinematography in his early years, and that sense of framing and movement enters his canvases. In Falling Bird (1999), for example, the diagonal makes the bird’s fall feel real and immediate. Birds are meant to fly, yet here they are falling.
The exhibition also includes early works from the late 1950s, when Mehta was finding his voice. During this time, he was close to members of the Progressive Artists’ Group, such as MF Husain and Krishan Khanna. While there are shared concerns, distorted faces, bold forms, mythological themes, Mehta’s work remains distinct.
He often removed clear facial expressions from his figures. He did not want to tell viewers what to feel, but left space for interpretation.
Alongside the artworks, the exhibition shows photographs of Mehta with fellow artists, award citations including the Padma Bhushan, notebooks, and personal objects (his walking cane, canvas on easel, rocking chair) from his studio. They remind us that behind the high auction prices and iconic images was a man who struggled with every canvas. He himself had said that painting was not easy for him.
“The process of painting is not easy for me. I struggle at every step. I destroy many paintings before one finally emerges,” he said while speaking about his process.
For KNMA, organising this retrospective is also important. Karode says that the museum has always tried to revisit and expand the story of Indian modern art. Over the past 15 years, it has worked to bring deeper attention to artists whose contributions need to be looked at again. Presenting Tyeb Mehta’s work at this scale allows a fuller understanding of his legacy.
In the end, Bearing Weight (with the lightness of being) shows that Mehta kept returning to the same questions throughout his life. The exhibition’s title inevitably brings to mind Milan Kundera’s 1984 novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Like Kundera, Mehta grapples with the tension between weight and lightness. History is heavy. Violence is heavy. But the paintings are stripped down, almost weightless in their form. In this tension lies their power. The bull, the falling figure, the goddess, the divided body, these images appear again and again. They carry the weight pain and survival.
And yet, the paintings themselves are controlled, made with strong lines and limited colours.
When you leave the exhibition, the images stay with you. The falling bird, the bull, the goddess, they continue to move in your mind. And may be that is what Tyeb Mehta wanted. To make us pause, look again, and feel the weight that images can carry.