Small and sleepy it may seem, but the Kanoria Centre for Arts in Ahmedabad is rocking. With work by art world biggies like M F Husain, Bhupen Khakhar and Dhruv Mistry in its kitty, the centre’s got big plans: an art gallery to showcase these works, most of them obtained as mementos after workshops.

It was in 1984, a year after the centre was set up, that Husain came calling for a workshop. The small painting he did now decorates a wall in the centre’s administrative block.

“At the 18 studios where these artists worked, we have accumulated 50-odd paintings, more than 15 sculptures and some 100 graphic printings. Now, to display these art works, we are thinking of constructing an art gallery in the premises,” says Puja Shah, centre co-ordinator.

“The centre is a good incentive for those who are keen on a career in art. Budding artists get good exposure as the centre is a melting pot of art and culture,” says Vadodara-based Dhruv Mistry who is a regular visitor.

Painters Rajesh Bhowmik, Binod Sharma, Bibhu Patnaik, Abhimanyu, Sudhakar and Nilesh Suthar have left their work behind while graphic prints and sculptures by Ravindra Reddy, Manisha Parekh, Sudarshan Shetty, Jaishree Chakrabarty, Walter D’souza and Anandjit Ray dot the landscape of the campus.

The centre also provides short-term scholarship to artists. Every scholar who avails of the studio facility has to donate at least two of his/her art works to the centre.

Agartala-based painter Bhowmik, who is known for having developed a style of his own “with a shade of German expressionism”, has left quite a few of his works at the centre. There are also works by Binod Sharma, an award-winning painter who studied in Santiniketan and then at Vadodara’s MSU. Sculptures by Sudarshan Reddy, who has been associated with experimental and postmodern sculptures and has frequently exhibited his works in Delhi and Mumbai, can also be spotted as can sculptures by MSU product Ravindra Reddy.

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